Valhalla
by SageQueen
Summary: I seriously think Mass Effect 2's infamous Horizons moment was ALL A PLOT! To keep it canon, this is my take on Cerberus' shenanigans. Follows ME2 storyline with flashbacks to earlier times. Bioware owns all. This is part 3 of 'Valkyrie' Shepard's tale.
1. Prologue: The Valkyrie

**Valhalla**

(Valkyrie, Part 3)

* * *

**_Author's Introduction:_**

Thank you to all the awesome folks who've read, reviewed, and supported my fan fic.

This is the 3rd story in an ongoing fan fiction about Lieutenant Commander Sophia (Kyrie) "Valkyrie" Shepard. The reason for the long name, plus many other aspects of her history and imperfectly paragon character are set up in the earlier volumes, Valkyrie (which follows Mass Effect 1) and Chosen of the Slain (which covers (spoilers) Shepard's death to her return).

**I both love and hate Mass Effect 2 for the way Shepard is forced to work with Cerberus and to leave old loves and loyalties behind in the darker, second chapter of her story.**

In order to reconcile these twin impulses in my mind, and to explain to myself how the hero of Mass Effect 1 could still be the same hero of Mass Effect 2, I started writing a fan fic and it just kept going. As much as possible, I've tried to keep all things true to the canon, or at least not blatantly go against it.

This story is also Shenko, meaning ample time spent with Kaidan Alenko. Special thanks to the KAST (Kaidan Alenko Support Thread) for inspiration and support.

BioWare owns Mass Effect and all aspects relating thereto. I just got to play around with the galaxy they created. I hope you enjoy the fic.

- sage

* * *

_Prologue/Chapter 1_

_(a mysterious station at an unknown location)_

**Note:** This is Chapter 12 of Chosen of the Slain. I realized that this chapter is necessary to set up Valhalla, so I'm putting it here as the prologue/first chapter.

After all, we need to go back to the beginning and remember where all the Mass Effect 2 mess began...with Cerberus. (Jerks!)

* * *

A man sat in a chair in a darkened room, watching a star die.

"Do you know the story of the Valkyrie?" he asked, breathing out a line of cigarette smoke.

"The Valkyrie?" a woman's voice asked in reply. "You mean our target?"

"You know her nickname then?"

"I know her whole file," came the reply. The voice held an Earth-Australian accent and an officious tone.

"I meant the story of the Valkyrie of legend," the man said. "The old Norse myths of Earth."

"The Valkyrie were daughters of the gods," the woman replied. Her shrug indicated that she assumed this was information everyone knew. "They walked the battlefields after wars and selected the worthiest warriors from among the slain. Then they took their dead to Valhalla - the feast hall of the gods. There, those heroes were born again."

"Fascinating, isn't it?" the man said, taking a drag from his cigarette. "The parallels of that story to this one are...intriguing."

There was a pause.

"I suppose it's fitting," the woman admitted. "As I recall, those risen heroes were then called upon to fight at Ragnarok – the final reckoning. The end of the world."

"Indeed," the man breathed out a cloud of smoke. "And here we are, looking for a hero to stand in the breech between us and the end of our world."

The woman looked up from her datapad. She had been reading a file marked 'Kyrie S.' Her lips thinned as she said, "But in the stories, it was the Valkyrie who did the choosing of the heroes. They weren't the ones being chosen. After all, the name 'Valkyrie' means 'chooser of the slain'."

"True," the man nodded. "But desperate times have called for a slight..._shift_ in the narrative. Have you made any headway with the asari?"

"Yes," came the reply. "We've intercepted mail between the archeologist and the lieutenant of the Normandy SR-1. He isn't responding. She's becoming desperate."

"Then the time is ripe to approach her," the man said approvingly. "Have you gotten your people into place?"

"I'm prepared," the woman said. "Is the lab ready?"

"Stocked and set," the man told her. "I'll release the location to you as soon as you have the target in custody. We can't risk anything getting in the way of our plans."

The woman fell silent as she considered this.

"What I wonder," she said at last, "is what the risen heroes thought of being brought back to life. They died in blood and then woke to find themselves in a golden hall, being asked to do battle in yet another war. What if they chose not to fight? What if _she_ chooses not to fight?"

"You have some concerns on the subject?" the man asked.

"It's one thing to raise the dead, but another to persuade the living. Her reaction to the ordeal – to us – to Cerberus, are a total gamble. I still say we need to implant her brain with some sort of control chip..."

"No," the man said firmly. "No controls – not of the kind you're talking about."

"But sir..."

"I'm working on safeguards right now," the man said, waving his hand to bring up a hologram screen just inches from his fingertips. "I find that in a situation such as this one, it is better to create a path than a leash."

The woman nodded, but her lips remained a thin line. The man saw this and looked at her with his eerie eyes.

"You worry about bringing Shepard back, Miranda," he said. "I'll worry about keeping her under control."


	2. Waking

_Chapter 2_

_(the hero returns)_

**Note**: Thanks to Fire Eye of KAST, who wrote a snippet that inspired this chapter. And yes, I intend for certain elements in this chapter to remain a little ambiguous. The game is a little ambiguous on certain key points, after all.)

**Further note**: In case you hadn't noticed, this continues the story of Valkyrie (aka Part 1) and Chosen of the Slain (aka Part 2). You don't have to read those first, but it might make more sense if you do. Besides, they're finished.

_

* * *

_

Shepard felt warm.

It wasn't the unpleasant warm of a stuffy ship, but a wonderful sort of warm. She didn't open her eyes, and why would she? It was so pleasant here, comfortable, free of aches, with this delicious sense of joy and contentment. It was if everything she had ever longed for in life was fulfilled by just _being_. She didn't think she would ever get enough of this. If she had to compare it to something, she thought that she was probably liken it to a mountain meadow, or a sandy beach with the sun shining down and a cool breeze.

She lay there, smiling into the light, dimly aware of people around her: lots of people that she liked and loved. She couldn't remember who they all were or how long she'd been like this, but it was too wonderful to care.

Then, suddenly, her whole body hurt.

The pain was incredible, ripping along every muscle. She gasped and half sat up. Instead of a beach or a meadow, she saw bright lights, metal and glass, and her own arms, filled with needles and tubes.

_What the hell?_

"My God, Miranda," a voice said. "She's waking up."

_Waking up?_ Shepard blinked, suddenly aware of her eyes. They felt dry and sticky, and the light was hurting them.

"Give her the sedative – now," a voice said.

_Sedative? No way._

Shepard was completely disoriented, but she had always been quick to adapt. If someone had her pinned to a bed and sedated, then that fell under the heading of 'Very Bad Shit.' In her personal reckoning of things, this was a shoot first, ask questions later sort of situation.

She reached for her gun. No gun. She gathered her biotic energy – and screamed.

The force of her own power caught her completely off guard. She had been tensing for a pulse of energy, and instead had ripped apart her own arm. She gasped in agony as the skin split open. Her head was pounding. She felt as though she had thought to turn on a faucet and switched on a fire hose.

What the hell had they done to her biotics?

What the hell had they done to _her_?

"She's going into shock," a voice said.

_No shit_, she thought, her heart racing. Who the hell were these people and how had they managed to completely mess with her biotics? This was no amp upgrade. This was a complete implant overhaul. She could feel the energy now, rushing through her body as though on cables, not wires.

"Give her another dose," a woman's voice said. "Shepard, lie still."

Shepard had never had much of a tolerance for medication, and she could feel herself falling under immediately. A face hovered into view just as the meds hit. It was a pretty face, a concerned face. Then it hardened as the woman turned to yell over her shoulder. Shepard didn't catch what was said.

As her eyes closed, she felt a cool breeze, sensed the light around her again. It was calming after that episode. She relaxed and rested in it.

"What was that all about, skipper?" someone asked her.

"Not sure," she murmured. "Must have dozed off there. Hope I don't have _that_ dream again."


	3. Under Attack

_Chapter 3_

_(this facility is under attack)_

_

* * *

_

The world rocked violently.

"Shepard, get out of that bed immediately!"

"Wha...?" Shepard murmured. When she opened her eyes, instead of seeing a beach like she expected, she saw bright lights.

"Oh shit," she muttered. "Not this again."

She squeezed her eyes shut against the...dream?...vision? Whatever it was, she didn't want to go there.

"Shepard, this facility is under attack!"

Shepard opened her eyes again, hoping she'd see something that looked less like space station and more like some place she'd visit on shore leave.

Lights, glass – a laboratory. _Shit_.

She supposed that meant the lab was real. And that meant the other place – the beachy meadow place – was a dream.

_Damn_, she thought as she rubbed her jaw. It had been a nice dream, too.

"Shepard, you need to get out of that bed!"

"Coming mom," she grumbled. She sat up and clutched at her ribs. They felt odd – new, even. She stumbled off of the bed and blinked her eyes.

"Who are you?" she called to the voice.

"We don't have time for that," came the reply. "There's weapons and armor in a locker there."

"Weapons and..." Shepard felt another lurch of the ground under her feet. "Okay...finding said armor. Who are you? _Where_ are you?"

She opened the locker and blinked as a full set of N7 gear rolled out at her feet. _Nice stuff_, she thought. This was an upgrade from her old jumpsuit. Must be Christmas-time for the Alliance.

"I'm trying to keep you alive," came the enigmatic reply. "Get suited up."

"I'm suiting, I'm suiting," Shepard grumbled. She tried to remember back to what she had last been doing – before the beach-meadow dream, that is. Then she remembered, and suddenly froze.

"My God," she whispered.

_Metal and fire; space and cold._

She had been spaced. She thought she had died. One glance around her told her that she must have spent a long time in this medbay.

"Where's Kaidan?" she asked at once. "Where's my crew? Are they okay? Do they need help getting out of here?"

"It's just you," the voice replied. "Now get moving."

"Where did you put them?"

"Damn it, Shepard! Just get that armor on! They're trying to kill you."

Shepard finished snapping the armor into place. "Who's they?"

"I'm not sure. Someone hacked security."

Shepard grabbed the pistol from inside the locker and frowned. "Well, they're going to succeed in killing me unless you can find this gun a thermal clip."

"It's a med bay," the voice replied.

"And yet you had weapons in here," Shepard called back.

"We give the clips out separately," the voice said.

"Right," Shepard said. "Well, if you can find me some, that would be great."

_Stupid thermal clips,_ she thought. They made battles more challenging ever since they'd been introduced shortly after the Battle of the Citadel. On the practice field, thermal clips made for smoother shooting. In the mission field, however, battles became a constant game of 'find the dead guy's dropped thermal clip.' Some days, she almost enjoyed that game. Strangely, even the geth had taken to using the thermal clips, so it usually worked out pretty well. At the moment, however, she was not in the mood for being stuck with a gun that could not fire because someone had forgotten to load it.

"Keep your head down," the voice commanded. "The tanks by the door are about to explode."

Shepard turned her head and saw the oxygen tanks and immediately jumped behind cover. Her speed surprised her. While she still felt disoriented, there was no doubt that her reaction time was quicker than it had been before. _Must be the adrenaline_, she thought.

"Security mechs are on their way to your position," the voice said. "I'm going to direct you to where I am."

"You got a name?" Shepard asked the voice.

"Miranda," the voice said. "Get moving, Shepard."

"Charmed, Miranda," Shepard said wryly. She walked through the doors to see a dead security worker at her feet. "Damn," she muttered.

"Get the thermal clip," Miranda ordered.

"Done," Shepard said. She took the clip, shoved it into her gun, and cocked the pistol. The cold sound of metal sliding on metal was eerily familiar after that warm dream of hers. For a moment, she felt like she was turning a corner to see a long road before her. Only, she wasn't sure if she welcomed that road or not. She almost felt...regret, though she was not entirely sure why.

Shepard shook her head. Her road was here before her, she told herself, strewn with bodies and thermal clips. She needed to get moving, not stand here imagining things. Out of habit, she went to throw on her biotic barrier.

"_Shit!_" she hissed. The barrier was strange, somehow – like a coating of tar rather than the flickering sheen of blue-white energy she'd used before. It felt heavy and powerful all at once, like sludge made of lightning. Shepard suddenly remembered her earlier episode. They had put her arm back together well, she realized. She hadn't even noticed the scars.

"What the hell did you do to my biotics?" she asked the voice.

"We gave you an implant upgrade," the voice named Miranda replied. "You're an L5 now."

"An L-_five_?" Shepard gaped. "You're kidding. The L4 model is still in classified development."

"Just be careful," Miranda said. "It may take you a while to adjust. Start slow."

"I was kicking ass just fine with the L3s," Shepard grumbled.

Okay, so she'd always wondered if the weaker implants hobbled her. But since she didn't have the headaches that bothered Kaidan, who was an L2, she really couldn't complain. Still, to suddenly wake up an L5...

The whole situation was pretty messed up, Shepard though wryly. Here she was with a pistol with only one heat-sink in it, her biotics had been upgraded so much that she wasn't sure she could properly use them anymore, and she was about to wander through a facility she'd never been in, while being attacked by an enemy she didn't know, while being guided by a disembodied voice of someone she'd met only once when heavily sedated.

Shepard grinned and shook her head. Nothing like a crazy situation to bring out the best in her. Now, if only Kaidan was here, she'd almost be having fun.

"Which way?" she asked the voice.

"There's a barricade..."

"I see it."

"Watch out!"

Shepard ducked behind the makeshift barricade just as a security robot of some kind came around the corner and shot at her. She was glad she'd ducked: her biotic barrier had already worn off. She was having trouble keeping the energy humming over her body when the power was so strong to start with. She carefully gathered a little biotic energy in her palm, made sure she had a good grasp on it, then fired it at the target. She was intending to knock it down, but instead the biotic ball snapped the mechanical security robot's arm off.

"Well hey," she muttered, "What do you know? You teach yourself something new every day."

The mech stumbled towards her, raising its gun in its remaining hand. Shepard jumped up from cover and shot the thing square in the head. Its circuit boards exploded and it dropped to the floor.

"Nice shot," Miranda said.

Shepard nodded grimly. Even if they'd messed with her biotics, she still could handle a gun. In fact, she had made that shot handily, almost as if her vision had improved and her reaction time was better.

"Have you got me on a security cam?" she asked the voice.

"Of course," came the reply. "I'm in the command room. I'll unlock the doors you need to find me."

"And I've got mechs all the way from me to you?" Shepard asked.

"Sadly so," Miranda replied.

"Where's my crew?" she asked again.

"Not here," Miranda told her. "Just stay alive and we'll talk about it later."

"Fun times," Shepard said. "Alright. I'm on my way."

She saw a couple more heat sinks lying on the floor near a pile of bodies. Ignoring the upturned faces as best she could, she grabbed the clips, shoved them into her pistol one by one, and hurried down the corridor though the door Miranda had opened.

"Damn!" she hissed, ducking down behind a barrier. She'd walked right into a whole team of mechs.

"Stay under cover while you take those mechs out," Miranda said in her infuriatingly cool voice.

"Yeah, thanks," Shepard shouted. She jumped up and shot one of them in the head twice. It fell to the floor. Without thinking, she jerked her elbow back and twisted her wrist. Instead of forming a roiling singularity that pulled every mech in the room into orbit around it, a weak blue ball of light went flickering over to the mechs. It stopped right in front of one of them and hovered there, like some low-class club's disco ball. Shepard's jaw dropped. _That_ was what had become of her famous singularity skill?

Shepard hissed out a curse as she ducked behind cover again. The mechs had shot through her shields. She glanced back to see that one of them had lifted off of its feet slightly and was flailing its arms. It was as if the singularity was rubbing its belly and it was hanging in the air, shaking from ticklish laughter.

Feeling slightly bemused, Shepard jumped up from cover and shot that mech's head off. Floating helpless had seemed to counter the mech's shields. That was a useful thing to know. Now if she could just get her singularity to work properly, she'd have this in the bag.

Shepard ducked under cover again, jumping up to shoot the mechs as precisely as she could. She attempted to shoot out another feeble missile of energy as she had before. It was nothing like her old ability to shred things with a dissonance field, but somehow, she found that the missile approach worked pretty well. It was like lobbing a baseball, she thought. She'd played on the school's team back on Mindoir, and this felt a lot like pitching. It looked like she was going to get plenty of practice at it, too, the way these mechs kept coming. She lobbed another ball of energy, then shot the mech's head as it stumbled back.

She blinked. That was all of them. Okay, that was good.

"Keep moving," Miranda said, by way of congratulations.

"You gonna tell me what's going on?" Shepard asked her as she hurried down the hall.

"I'm...facility...hacked..." Miranda's voice broke up in a storm of static.

"Great," Shepard sighed. As much as the woman's voice annoyed her, at least it was someone to talk to. Now she was alone...

Shepard rounded the corner to see a man shooting across a chasm at crowd of mechs. By the look of him, he knew how to use a gun and he was aiming it at the things that were aiming at her. In the Book of Shepard, that meant he was alright for now, and might even prove useful later. Shepard ran to reach him. She realized that she was able to sprint more quickly than she ever had before. She ducked down beside the man under cover of a glass railing.

"Shepard?" the man blinked at her. "What the hell?"

"Do I know you?" she asked. "You with Miranda?"

"Yeah," he said. "I'm Jacob."

They both ducked as a bullet glanced off of the railing above their heads.

"Things must be bad if Miranda woke you up," he said.

"You wanted me to keep sleeping?" she asked. "Seems I've been asleep a while."

The man gave her a strange look. "You have no idea," he said.

Across the chasm, even more mechs appeared. Their gunfire was like a rainstorm of bullets, just over their heads.

"What the hell is going on here?" Shepard asked.

"This isn't really a good time," he replied.

"Right," she agreed, popping the heat-sink from her pistol and pulling on another sluggish biotic barrier. "Dead mechs first, questions later."


	4. Bald

_Chapter 4_

_

* * *

_

"Oh sh...," Shepard broke off, staring at her reflection in the window of the shuttle. Behind her pale face, she could see an endless sea of stars. But the thing that most had caught her attention was –

"I'm bald," she gasped. She ran a hand over her head in wonder. "You...I..." She blinked again. "I'm bald."

"It doesn't look so bad," Jacob offered. He shifted in the seat across from her. Outside of the window, the Lazarus station receded quickly into the distance. Shepard ignored him and kept staring at her reflection.

"Why the haircut?" she asked at last, slanting a glance at Miranda. The brunette tossed her own long hair over her shoulder and gave Shepard an unsympathetic shrug.

"Your body had endured a lot of trauma," the Cerberus officer explained. "Burns, impact. It was rather remarkable that we were able to salvage you at all. Your hair – what was left of it – was in the way. Wilson and I needed to focus on getting you back to life."

"So you shaved me," Shepard said blandly. She frowned at Miranda, then at her own face again. "How long have I been like this?"

"Your epidermis took a while to fully regrow," Miranda said clinically. "And that was only after we upgraded your muscle and bone with a synthetic weave to make them stronger."

"A weave?" Shepard held up her arms and turned them this way and that. No wonder she'd felt so tender – and so strong. Her arms felt a little like steel cords – with electric cables of biotic energy flowing through them. As Miranda detailed some of the other upgrades, Shepard blinked in surprise. She sounded more machine than human, now.

"Both eyes had to be replaced?" Shepard repeated, feeling a little ill.

"Yes," Miranda nodded. "I understand this is the second time your right eye has been replaced. The original work was a little faulty. There was a slight imperfection in the right eye: vision was degrading faster than in the left and I'm not sure if you had even noticed it, but there was a slight color difference, too."

"I had noticed," Shepard nodded. Kaidan had noticed too, once upon a time. He'd commented on it, asking why her left eye was greenish and had a slight ring of hazel around the iris, while her right eye was blue-gray. From a distance, he hadn't been able to tell, but up close...

Shepard frowned and tilted her head to the side. What would Kaidan think of this new look of hers? She hoped he had been serious when he said he had never been impressed with women who prettied themselves up. Right about now, she didn't look 'pretty' at all.

"You hair had only recently begun to grow again," Miranda told her, breaking into her thoughts. "We hadn't planned to wake you up for another few weeks yet."

"I still would have been a billiard ball," Shepard said wryly.

"You have some hair," Jacob pointed out. He looked a little out of place in the conversation.

"Some," Shepard agreed. "Not a lot."

"Based on what I knew of you from your files," Miranda said, raising an eyebrow, "I didn't think you'd care."

Shepard thought about that. It was true that she hadn't noticed her hair was gone until just now. It wasn't like she'd checked on it first thing. But then, waking on an operating table, worrying about her crew, dealing with the biotic amp upgrade, the mechs, Wilson's betrayal and now this hasty exit from the station had distracted her. It wasn't like the Lazarus station had a bunch of mirrors lying around, either. If it had seemed a little cold in the facility at first, she'd assumed it was because she'd woken in a lab after sleeping on steel.

On the one had, she knew it didn't really matter. She had never been a vain woman. Until Kaidan had come along and thought she was beautiful, she'd never much thought about her looks at all. But this... She glanced at her reflection again. She looked like a... War camp survivor? An early twenty-first century cancer survivor? A rescued slave? She looked like some kind of survivor, anyhow. It was a fierce look, but one that suggested to her that one had endured much pain rather than inflicted it.

That was why she didn't like this, she thought as she tried to turn her head to see the back. She hadn't _chosen_ it. Not that she'd ever been very choosy about her hair. She wanted it out of her way, and that was as far as she thought about it most days. Hell, in her fight against Saren, she had no time for a haircut. She had started the mission in need of a trim and ended it in even worse need of a trim. Her hair had always grown quickly, which mostly just annoyed her. Now, however, she found herself wondering how quickly this new cut would grow out – and what it would look like when it did.

"I don't care about the hair," Shepard said at last, wishing it to be true rather than knowing it to be true. "It's just that it...well, it's just a glaring indication of the fact that..." She tried to think of how to finish that sentence.

"Things have changed," she finished lamely. That was an understatement, she thought. If what Jacob had said was true...

"It's really been two years?" she asked. "Two years? I've been gone that long?"

"Two years and twelve days," Jacob said with a nod.

"You've been dead that long," Miranda corrected.

Shepard glanced at Miranda. The woman gave new meaning to the words 'icy bitch.' As Shepard had been referred to by exactly that title a few times herself, she figured she would know. Miranda was beautiful, almost ridiculously so, with long hair that Shepard was suddenly a little jealous of. She wore an outfit that Shepard felt would better suit a hooker than anyone who was planning on running or using a gun. But as Miranda had recently done both, Shepard couldn't say much about her taste in clothes. Shepard's intuition was that Miranda was cold. However, that made her easy to read. The woman didn't seem terribly good at deception.

Jacob, on the other hand, seemed decent, but he also struck her as a follower who was uncertain of himself. That actually made Shepard trust him less than of Miranda. The man shifted uncomfortably under her gaze. He clearly was less happy about blithely telling Shepard how much of her life she'd just lost – both literally in the sense of having died and figuratively, in the sense of having been gone so long.

Back on the station, Jacob had revealed that he and Miranda worked for Cerberus, the rogue, human-centric organization that Shepard had always considered to be a bunch of terrorists. In a strange change of policy, Cerberus had decided not to kill Shepard, but instead to bring her back to life after she'd been killed by some other mysterious enemy, and now were wanting...well, something. Shepard just wasn't sure what. But she doubted they had brought her back to life just to send her back to the Alliance with new N7 gear and this wicked haircut.

"What does Cerberus want with me?" she asked, suspiciously. "Is this whole thing part of your 'build a super-soldier' crap?"

"While you are a remarkable soldier," Miranda told her, "We didn't bring you back just because you can fight. That is part of it, but we needed you specifically: your knowledge, your skills, what you have seen..."

Shepard suddenly remembered some of the audio files she had found while stumbling around on the station, trying to get to Miranda.

_Initial progress is slow. We are making a shift to bio-synthetic fusion..._

_The project has gone over budget. Over five billion credits so far..._

_Our orders were clear: we are to bring back the subject exactly as she was. The same thoughts, the same memories, the same morals. If she is somehow not the woman she was, then the project will have failed..._

At the time, Shepard had not understood it. She had been too busy shooting at mechs to process the fact that all that chatter was about _her_.

"What I've seen?," Shepard asked, "Are you talking about the beacon? About the visions I saw on Eden Prime?"

"You remember," Miranda nodded. "That's good."

"So it _is _about the beacon," Shepard pressed.

"That is part of it," Miranda admitted. "But your friend, the asari, also saw the visions – though I suspect she didn't see them as clearly as you did."

"Asari?" Shepard frowned. "You mean Liara? You know her?"

"We know...of her," Miranda said, looking away. Shepard's eyes narrowed at that. The woman was lying, but about what, Shepard could not tell.

"Is she alright?" Shepard asked immediately.

"I told you before," Jacob said. "Your crew is fine."

"You told me they were alive," Shepard said. "That's not the same thing."

After all, she thought to herself, Jacob had told her that the world thought she was dead. That meant her crew thought she was dead. What that had done to them – what that would have done to Kaidan – she couldn't imagine. She wanted to turn this stupid shuttle towards Alliance space at once and go find him – go find all of them. But for the moment, she was being treated likes something between a hostage of Cerberus and an honored guest. Until she knew more about what was going on, she couldn't very well go making demands.

Furthermore, something warned her that she shouldn't show too much concern for her old crew. Personal ties could be seen as weaknesses, as liabilities. Until she knew how far Cerberus would go to get her cooperation in this unspoken scheme of theirs, she really shouldn't let them know just how personal some of those ties were.

"So this...Illusive Man," Shepard went on, quickly, "If he didn't clone me to make some super soldier, then he brought me back because he wants...what?"

"You'll have to ask him," Miranda said. "He will explain it better than I."

"Evasive is really annoying," Shepard told her. "Especially in a long shuttle ride."

"We'd tell you more if we..." Jacob began.

"You'll find out soon enough," Miranda cut him off.

Shepard let out a breath. "So how did you manage to bring me back?" she asked, suddenly remembering her strange dreams from the times she woke up. They seemed fuzzy now, but she could still recall that there had been something curious about them, more real than reality, if such a thing were possible.

"We downloaded your brain functions as electrical impulses into our computer as a backup system as we reactivated the cell activity in the brain tissues. Then we..." Miranda went on into a rant of technobable that had Shepard wishing she knew a little bit more about medicine than her basic first aid classes had taught her.

"But that's..." Shepard shook her head. "Okay, so you rebuilt my body and my brain wasn't totally fried. But what about...?" She broke off. "Ah, hell, never mind," she muttered.

"What about what, commander?" Miranda asked.

Shepard considered her for a moment, then said, "I guess I was just wondering about my...well, _me_. My...soul, consciousness – whatever it is that makes me...me."

"Soul?" Miranda blinked. "You believe in a soul?"

"I do, actually," Shepard replied. "I guess you didn't need to believe in it to bring me back. That's...interesting. I feel like myself..." Shepard broke off, deciding that she'd said too much. She resolved to keep her visions of the meadow to herself. They were probably just dreams, and they were simply too personal – and pleasant – to share with these two characters.

"I didn't realize you were religious," Miranda said, frowning. "Your parents were, I know. But you didn't register a preferred religion on your Alliance application."

"I was sort of pissed off at the universe at the time I enlisted," Shepard said.

"You never once attended a service," Miranda went on.

"I went to chapel all the time," Shepard told her. "I went when no one else was there and it was quiet. It's a good time to think."

"And to pray?" Miranda pressed.

"Occasionally," Shepard shrugged.

"To what God?"

Shepard thought about that. "I'm not sure," she answered, honestly. "I figured it didn't really matter what I called him...her...it...as long as we were on speaking terms."

"This didn't show up on your file," Miranda said, frowning.

Shepard raised an eyebrow. "Yeah, well, I'd like to think that there is more to me than what's in the file. What does it matter to you, anyhow? What I believe is my business."

"Not when I'm trying to bring you back exactly as you were, it's not," Miranda told her. "How can I compare your current state to your past one if I didn't know this detail?"

"And just what would you do if you had failed to bring me back correctly?" Shepard wanted to know. "Terminate me?"

Miranda's lips thinned and she looked away. _Cerberus hasn't changed at all, _Shepard thought. And Miranda was really bad at lying.

"Your personal beliefs may greatly affect this mission," Miranda said. "I just want to know what we're dealing with."

"You're dealing with me," Shepard told her, ice creeping into her voice and gaze. "I suppose you think I should be grateful to you for bringing me back, but I assure you, I will continue to act as I always have, judging by my own conscience first. _That_ is what I have to answer to in the end." The irony of her worlds struck her immediately. In some ways, she already had answered to her conscience. Well, if she had to do it again, she wanted to keep said conscience clear.

Oddly enough, her words seemed to please Miranda. The woman smiled a little. It was not a terribly warm smile. "That sounds more like the Shepard I read about," Miranda said.

"Glad to know I have a fan," Shepard replied wryly. Well, at least her cold attitude had gained the Cerberus woman's respect, Shepard thought. That was good to know. Silence descended upon the small shuttled. Outside, the stars winked cold and clear.

"Before we meet the Illusive Man," Miranda said after an awkward pause, "we really should see if your memories are intact."

"Come on, Miranda," Jacob groaned, "More tests?"

"The Illusive Man wants to know that Shepard came back exactly as she was," Miranda told him. "Ask the questions."

"This is ridiculous," Shepard frowned. "I don't see how answering a quiz is going to confirm that I came back okay."

The two Cerberus operatives ignored her. They began to ask her questions about Mindoir, the Blitz, then about Ashley's death. That last one made Shepard bristle, but she answered it all the same. They then asked about Captain Anderson – Councilor Anderson now – and Shepard's role in saving the entire galactic Council from the Reaper threat. Shepard answered the questions, all the while wondering how the two Cerberus agents thought that any of this was proof that she'd come back with her head on straight. Clearly, neither of these people had a degree in psychology.

"Come on, Miranda," Jacob said at last. "Enough with the quizzes. Shepard's fine. And I can personally vouch for her skills in combat. Shepard was amazing back there. Even disoriented as she was, she saved our butts and got us out of there." He turned to Shepard with an approving nod. "I was wondering if one soldier could really make a difference," he said, "but if that soldier is you, I can see it will."

Shepard wasn't quite sure how to take the compliment, especially coming from a Cerberus flunky. In the past, Cerberus had probably wished she _wasn't_ such an effective soldier. She settled for a curt nod in return.

"We did alright back there," she agreed. "Though I could have done without the implant upgrade. That was quite a trip to test out a new biotic system under fire."

"I intended to give you a manual," Miranda told her. "Unfortunately, the manual got fried along with most of the hacked systems."

"A _manual_?" Shepard asked. "For _biotics_?"

"Of course," Miranda said. "I learned my own biotic skills from a manual, mostly, and also personal trainers. I understand you got training from the Alliance."

"A lot of good that did me," Shepard snorted. "I made up most of it myself."

Miranda considered this. "I see," she said. She lifted her chin and gazed down at Shepard with narrowed blue eyes. She looked as though she were glaring at something unpleasant, Shepard thought, not at all someone that she had just spent years studying and rebuilding. _Well_, Shepard thought, _they say that familiarity breeds contempt_.

"Now that you are awake," Miranda said, slowly, "I find you much as I expected you, and yet...not at all what I pictured."

"That's suitably vague," Shepard said.

"I have studied your files, all news vids..."

"Well there's your problem there," Shepard said, rolling her eyes, "I hate the press..."

"Commendations, even personal statements, when I could find them. And yet, I could never quite put the puzzle together. There was always this...unexplained nature to you."

"Unexplained how?"

"I don't know how to describe it, exactly," Miranda said, looking at Shepard now as if she was something in a test-tube rather than a person sitting right across from her. "Your genetics, for example. I kept thinking I would find something different, something that set you apart. But aside from your unusually fair coloring, there is nothing remarkable about you at all. Your parents made a point of leaving you entirely genetically unaltered. In fact, you were almost as primitive – genetically speaking – as our twenty-first century ancestors. I wondered if perhaps the lack of interference allowed for some anomaly of benefitial genetic mutation, but I found nothing to support that theory."

"Wait," Shepard said. "You brought me back to life to check out my _genes_?"

"No," Miranda shook her head. "But as I was bringing you back, I kept looking to your genes to understand what it was that allowed you to accomplish everything you had with Saren and Sovereign. I kept looking for the key, but never found it."

"Sometimes, Ms. Lawson," Shepard said, "It's not what you fight with, but what you fight _for_, that makes the difference."

"I beg your pardon?"

"I have skills, it's true. They kept me alive to keep moving forward. But in the end, the real thing that drove me through the Blitz and Eden Prime and everything that came after it was the fact that there was a bad guy with big guns and he had them aimed at innocent people."

"And you chose to step into the line of fire," Jacob said, admiringly.

Shepard shrugged. "I did. But a lot of other people were right there with me."

"But you led them," Miranda replied. The woman's face took on a strange expression. "The capacity to lead and the drive to move forward, that is what I was looking for. It's in the genes – all of it. It's what gives us our capabilities, makes us what we are. There is nothing that we can accomplish that is not coded for."

"That's bull," Shepard said. "Sure, genes play a role. I know I'm as stubborn as my dad and feisty as my mother. But a lot of who we are in life is what we do with it – what we choose."

"You didn't choose to become a hero," Miranda told her.

"True," Shepard admitted, "I became a hero because the Alliance wanted good PR."

"Exactly," Miranda nodded, "And the reason you lived through the situations that you did was because of your skills. You survived Mindoir because of your biotics; you survived the Blitz for the same reason. Those skills that saved you are based on your genetics."

"And the reason the galaxy is still around," Shepard pressed back, "Is because I had a damn good crew. Speaking of which, I'd like to find them."

Miranda and Jacob exchanged a glance. Miranda's face did not change, but Jacob shifted nervously.

"What?" Shepard asked sharply.

"You can ask the Illusive Man about that," Miranda said. "We're nearly to the station. When we get there, you can get cleaned up before your meeting with him."

"Fat lot of good that will do me," Shepard muttered, rubbing the back of her shorn head.

"I think you will find, however," Miranda added, "that the crew of the Normandy have all moved on. It may be time for you to look for new allies."

"Allies with Cerberus?" Shepard's eyes narrowed once more. "Not a chance."


	5. Illusive

_Chapter 5_

_(Illusive)_

_

* * *

_

"Welcome back, Valkyrie."

Shepard folded her arms over her chest. "Illusive Man." She paused. "Is that really what people call you? Or do they come up with some sort of nickname? Illusive? Ill?"

"My people call me 'Illusive Man,' yes," he said. The man blew out a line of cigarette smoke that looked thin and pixilated to Shepard from where she was standing in the remote comm chamber. The holograph of the Illusive Man showed her little of his features except that he appeared to be middle aged, well-dressed, and was likely to die of liver disease or lung cancer given that he was taking drags from a cigarette with one hand and holding a drink in the other.

"You have some reason for bringing me back?" she asked. "Or was this just two birthday presents at once?"

He cocked his head. "Your file didn't say anything about you having a sarcastic streak," he observed.

"Miranda said the same thing," Shepard replied with a shrug.

"I would have thought that you'd be a little more pleased at being returned to life."

"I wasn't unhappy dead," she said, remembering snippets of the...dream? She figured she'd never know for sure what that vision had been.

"You weren't able to get much done when you were dead," he replied. "And there's work to be done now. You need to get over your personal issues with Cerberus..."

"Which ones?" she interrupted him. "The issue where you killed an admiral? The issue where you let a whole unit of marines die just so you could observe them melting in venom? The issue where you experimented on a whole colony of innocent people and turned them into husks? There were _children_ in that colony, you bastard."

"Some of my cells went a little...rogue," the man told her. "Even I didn't know all the details of what they did."

"Bullshit," she snapped.

The Illusive Man blew out a line of smoke. "Come now, Shepard," he said. "I wouldn't hold you accountable for a cruel act done by someone else in the Alliance."

"First," she said, "don't call me 'Shepard.' Second, the Alliance doesn't do stuff like the things Cerberus did. Third, you wouldn't hold me accountable _unless_ I was in command of said crazy shit. And since you _were _in command..."

"They went rogue on me, Shepard," the man snapped. "And this isn't about that. This is about the missing colonies."

Shepard stopped. Okay. Now _that_ got her attention.

"What missing colonies?" she asked suspiciously, though she guessed that she already knew.

"You found one of them yourself, I think" the Illusive Man said, blowing out a line of smoke. "Before the Normandy went down, you saw an abandoned colony out in the traverse - and you knew it wasn't the geth."

"My reports were classified," she said, though she knew at once it didn't matter. Clearly this guy knew way too much about her and all of her missions.

She remembered back to that colony, the one they had left behind just before the Normany was attacked. The place had been vandalized and looted, almost burned to the ground. It was impossible to tell what had happened exactly, but the strangest thing was that there had been no bodies, no bloodstains, not a single trace of human carnage. It was as if whoever had attacked the place had gotten the inhabitants to politely line up and walk into a cage, then hauled them away and burned the colony afterward. The ruins had been as baffling as they had been unnerving.

"That was only a first of many," the Illusive Man went on. "While you were unconscious, many more such attacks have occurred. The current number of missing humans is in the thousands – the _tens_ of thousands."

Shepard's heart sank._ Tens of thousands?_ Immediately she pictured the faces of her cousins, taken as slaves years ago and never found.

Shepard didn't trust this man, she didn't like his methods of recruitment and – if she stopped and thought about it – she had only been awake for a few hours after two years...dead. And yet he was already trying to get her to join his formerly-and-most-likely-presently terrorist organization.

But people were in trouble – and children and innocent people who had gone looking for a better life. If that many people had gone missing...

"Why not the Alliance?" she asked, trying to think clearly. There was something he wasn't telling her, and letting her emotions get in the way wasn't going to help.

The Illusive Man explained his reasoning: the Alliance didn't believe this was really a threat. The colonies were outside of Council space. He went on and on, his reasoning seeming clear...

"Cut the crap," she said at last. "What is it that you're not saying?"

The man seemed to smile a little. It was hard to tell with the video-comm link.

"The Council doesn't want to see the real threat," he said. "But it's the same one you faced all those years ago."

"The Reapers," Shepard frowned. "I _knew_ you were going to say that. How exactly are the Reapers harvesting humans all the way from dark space?"

"We think they're using agents. The patterns are there, buried in the data," he told her. "It's them alright. They're coming, and _you_ are the only one who can stop them."

"So that's why you brought me back," she said, his reasoning making sense even as it made her feel suddenly weary. "Because I'm the only one who believes in the Reapers."

"Not only that," he told her. "You fought one. You killed it."

"So you want me to do what, exactly?" she asked. "Find another one and kill it? That might prove tricky."

"For starters, I need you to go with Miranda and Jacob. We just got word a human colony was hit. It's called Freedom's Progress. Go investigate it."

"I don't take orders from you," she bristled at his tone.

"Then do it as a favor," he said. For a moment, his eyes seemed to flash. Perhaps it was just a trick of the video link. "Humor me for bringing you back to life by going and investigating this colony. If you don't find the information you are looking for, then you can walk away."

"Oh really?" she asked, folding her arms across her chest. She didn't believe that for a second.

"However," he said, "I think that you will find data that will convince you that this matter needs to be dealt with, regardless of whom you have to work with to do it."

Shepard frowned. That was what she was afraid of. Still, as long as she was working _with_ them and not _for_ them... She scowled. That was splitting hairs and she knew it. But she couldn't see any way out of this at the moment. That was probably their plan all along.

"Alright," she said, lifting her chin. "I'll go. But you had better be a little less cryptic when we talk next."


	6. Back on the Citadel

_Chapter 6_

_(Kaidan returns to the Citadel)_

**Note**: Special thanks to sia and jilly's awesome fics for inspiring pieces of this one. You guys rock!

**Further note:** The picture on the desk was changed deliberately. I hope to elaborate later.

* * *

Kaidan stepped onto the Presidum, then winced as a headache seemed to split his skull. The bright lights had never been exactly soothing, but they seemed even more garish by comparison with the Wards below and the docks before that.

After nearly two years away, this place looked pretty much the same. The Wards had changed a lot, but then, on the Citadel, as with anywhere else, it was always a case of salvaging the rich people's digs first. The Wards were still being rebuilt. Pinching his nose, Kaidan hitched the duffel bag onto his shoulder and made his way to the embassies. A short walk took him to a door that looked much like any other. He pressed the button for the chime and waited for the door to open.

When the doors slid apart, he walked inside. This place hadn't changed at all.

"Commander," an voice called to him. "Sit down. I'm just finishing up these reports."

Kaidan started, just as he always did when addressed by his title. Few people used it. Whenever he met someone new, he encouraged them to call him 'Alenko.' 'Commander' was a title he still felt belonged to someone else – even though she had been a Lieutenant Commander and not a Staff Commander like him. And as for the name 'Kaidan,' well, _she_ had called him that. He avoided that name now. It was easy enough to do so. Few people were that close to him these days.

"Sir," he nodded, then found himself a seat across the desk from the older gentleman sitting there. Captain – no, Councilor – Anderson was looking a little tired these days, but he still had the bearing of a man who had seen a lot, shaken his head at it, and gotten down to business. Kaidan's eyes trailed over the datapads on the man's desk, then rested on the picture sitting on the corner. He stiffened.

It was Shepard.

The holograph image was one he hadn't seen before. Though Kaidan tended to turn away whenever mention of Shepard came on the vids, he hadn't been able to completely ignore all the hype that had followed her death. Even out in remote colonies, it was big news that the hero of the Blitz, first human Specter, savior of the Citadel, and three-time winner of Fornax Magazine's Hottest Female With a Gun poll had, well, _died_.

Kaidan didn't want to think about that. He never wanted to think about that. In fact, he had spent most of his time these last two years trying _not_ to think about that. And yet, here he was, back on the Citadel, seeing landmarks that reminded him of her everywhere, and now he was staring at an image of her face.

It was a good holograph, he had to admit. In it, she was wearing an officer's uniform and appeared to be smiling slightly. That was unusual for Shepard. She didn't smile much, especially not for photo ops. She also wasn't the most photogenic woman in the world. She'd had a rather wicked scar on her cheek and rarely took the effort to pretty herself up. Most of the time, she'd been too busy running from one mission to another to do so. As a result, most images tended to make her look attractive, but in a harsh, remote kind of way. It was a persona she gladly let the world take hold of and run with.

But to him, Shepard had always looked like...well, the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. When she had been with him alone, her hair falling about her face, her wide, different colored eyes looking at him with that mixture of mischief and adoration...

Kaidan shook his head as a wave of sorrow washed over him. She was dead, and now... He couldn't go any further. He shoved the idea of Shepard away for what felt like the millionth time. Kaidan adjusted his chair so that he could no longer see her picture.

"Alenko," Anderson mercifully looked up just then and set his datapad aside. "Good to see you." He reached across the desk to shake Kaidan's hand. Kaidan did the same, then both men sat back down.

"How did it go?" Anderson asked.

"As well as could be expected," Kaidan replied. "They fought the installation of the new defense system tooth and nail, but in the end, they learned how to use it. I had to use biotics on at least one hot shot who thought he'd try and take down the Alliance Marine during milita practice, but the new commander of that outfit has since gotten the troops in line. In short, we were successful."

"_You_ were successful," Anderson said, nodding. "Good work, commander." He paused. "Ah, Alenko. I have bad news."

"What?" Kaidan asked, immediately frowning.

"The colony on Freedom's Progress went out of contact."

"Shit," Kaidan said. He then winced at his language. "Ah, sorry sir."

"My feelings exactly, commander," Anderson said, dryly.

"Any information, sir?"

"No," Anderson shook his head sadly. "We'll be sending in a search team as soon as we can get one authorized."

"I see why you called me back," Kaidan frowned. "Damn it. If only it hadn't taken so long to set up the systems on Veda, I might have gotten to Freedom's Progress in time to set them up with..."

"That wasn't your fault," Anderson said. "You were slowed by the brass from the start and the colonists didn't help."

"You read my report?" Kaidan blinked.

"It arrived here fifteen minutes before you did," Anderson said. "You still using public extranet terminals to check your mail?"

"These colonies you keep sending me to aren't exactly on the grid," Kaidan said wryly. "Besides, I've been busy. I have to wait until I get into bigger ports of call to check my inbox."

"I see," Anderson said, "Well, you can check it now. I imagine it will be full as long as you've been out in the traverse."

"Sir?" Kaidan asked. He knew he didn't have any messages. No one had been writing him – other than Anderson himself – for months.

"You may as well settle in, commander. I've arranged a room for you in the barracks."

"I'm not going to Freedom's Progress?" he asked.

"That's another team's assignment," Anderson replied. "Truthfully, it may be a few weeks before we send you out again. We need to review our defense systems and which colonies we think are likely to be hit next. See if you can't enjoy yourself for the next few days. I'll send for you when I have more information from the brass."

"I'm...staying here?"

"For now," Anderson said. He paused, then frowned. He shifted in his chair, then looked at the picture on his desk uncomfortably.

"You still haven't heard anything...conclusive, have you, commander?"

Kaidan knew at once what the older man was referring to. So he was sure his face didn't register any emotion at the question. He'd gotten too good at acting like a machine for that to happen. Even now, he felt numb as he replied: "About...her, you mean, sir?"

"About Shepard, yes," Anderson nodded.

"I've heard rumors," Kaidan said. "That's all." He didn't like to think about them, much less repeat them. He wished that they didn't have the power to stir a faint hope in him after all this time, but they did. Even though he knew that hope was a complete illusion, they did. "I don't believe them," he said, more to himself than Anderson.

Anderson nodded.

"Sir?" Kaidan asked, curiosity getting the better of his sense of protocol. "I would help me here, if I...knew what you know. There are rumors that she's...working with Cerberus, and while I don't..."

"I can't tell you anything," Anderson said, standing. "I know you don't like it, but information is a one way street here, commander. I need you to give it to me, and I can't give it to you. I'm sorry."

Kaidan frowned, but he nodded all the same.

"I can tell you," Anderson went on, "That I still think Cerberus is up to something, even if you haven't found any proof of it yet."

"In two years, my assignments have only accomplished the stated objective," Kaidan told him. "I've gotten ten colonies outfitted with towers and found nothing on Cerberus."

"Cerberus still hasn't reared any of its heads," Anderson said wryly. "I don't know whether to be pleased or...worried. You're one scout of many, Alenko, but you're the one I trust the most."

"Sir?"

"It's...nothing," Anderson said with a weak smile. "Just...the worries of an old man. Dismissed, commander."

"Aye, aye, sir," Kaidan said, standing to salute. He wanted to ask more, to insist that Anderson tell him something about his suspicions about Cerberus. But he knew the Councilor wouldn't. He hadn't for two years now.

Kaidan gave the Councilor one last worried look, then picked up his duffel and left for Alliance barracks.

When Kaidan had been called back to the Citadel, he hadn't expected to even unpack. He figured he'd be right on his way to Freedom's Progress after a status update with Anderson. Of course, he had wondered why Anderson had called him all the way back from the traverse, and now he knew. If the next location on his list of colonies to set up with defense systems was gone now...

Kaidan frowned. This whole assignment was one giant effort in frustration and futility. He liked to think that what he was doing in covertly setting up non-Alliance affiliated colonies with Alliance defense systems was going to protect them, but there was really no way to know. He left the colonies behind as soon as he was done installing the systems and orgainizing a milita and had no contact with them after that. So far he'd set up ten such colonies. They were always ungrateful for the help – they saw it as Alliance interference. Still, he liked to think that it was going to keep them safe should slavers or pirates hit.

Now if he could just find something useful on Cerberus.

He simply couldn't believe the rumors that Shepard was working for them. If she'd lived - and she hadn't - she would have come back to the Alliance at once, not gone off with terrorists. Still, Kaidan heard the rumors from time to time and they annoyed him to no end. So he simply buried his head in his work, these days focusing more on the goal of outfitting colonies with defense systems than investigating Cerberus.

If only the Alliance had helped these colonies this years ago, Kaidan thought, they might have been able to save colonies like Mindoir, Shepard's home. Though, if that had happened, she might never have joined the Alliance, might never have become the woman she was.

And he might never have met her.

Some days, Kaidan almost wished he had never met Shepard. He had now been living without her for longer than he'd known her and he still felt as raw and lonely as he had that first day she died. He'd covered the wound well, though. He had tried to shove his feelings about her down deep inside where they could not bother him. They might be festering there, for all he knew, his heart might be dead down there, but his chest had scarred over at least.

Few people knew what Kaidan had gone through when Shepard died, because few people knew what Shepard was to him. He preferred it that way.

"Alenko!" Kaidan looked up in surprise. It took him a moment to recognize the man who was coming out of the barracks just now, but then he placed the face and found a name to go with it.

"Dean," he said, reaching out and shaking the hand of the officer. "I thought you were out on some classified something or other."

"Naw," the Marine shrugged. "Been back from that for years. They've got me doing security on the Alliance message systems. Got a lot of hackers targeting humanity these days."

"I bet," Kaidan nodded.

"So what are you up to?" the Marine asked.

"Classified," Kaidan replied.

"Of course," Dean nodded. "You were always one of the poster boys for the Alliance. Well, you and that war-hero commander of yours. Shepard, right?"

Kaidan opened his mouth, but couldn't find anything to say. His expression must have spoken for him, because Dean immediately looked troubled.

"Aw, shit man," he said. "I didn't mean... I saw the vids."

"It's okay," Kaidan said hastily, hoping Dean wouldn't go on. Thankfully, he didn't.

"Hey, you around for a couple of days?" Dean asked.

"Apparently so," Kaidan replied, hefting his duffel bag higher.

"Me and some friends are going out to this new club in the Wards tonight. They just finished re-building it. Come join us, man."

Kaidan was ready to say no, thank you, I don't drink, and besides I've got a meeting first thing in the morning – any of the usual excuses he had given in the past when invited out for the evening. But the thought of sitting alone in these barracks with nothing to do but brood on the last time he was here was a much bleaker prospect. The last time he was here, he'd skipped out on Shepard's funeral and only barely kept it together in the following weeks. He didn't feel like repeating that time in his life.

Honestly, Kaidan didn't feel any more human now than he had the last time he was here on the Citadel. On good days he felt like a machine and on bad days he felt like a broken machine. But he could pretend, at least. Maybe after a while, pretending would make things seem more sane.

So he found himself opening his mouth and saying, "Okay, sure. What time?"

"1900 hours," Dean replied. "I'll stop by and get you. And Alenko, wear your dress uniform. The girls in the Wards really dig the Alliance dress uniforms, especially the asari." He gave Kaidan a thumbs up and disappeared down the hall.

Kaidan shook his head as he went to find his room. Dean was a good guy. If he had only been able to fall in love with something other than his computer, he might have found a girl by now.

Kaidan found his room and went inside. He dropped his duffel bag onto the bed and began pulling out his clothes. He found his rumpled officer's uniform and began to put it onto a hanger. He wouldn't wear that tonight. Besides the fact that it struck him as a little ostentatious to wear such a thing to a club in the Wards, he had never quite gotten over the fact that the last time he'd worn it, it had been to Shepard's funeral. The time before that, Shepard had been removing it from him.

Kaidan put the uniform into the closet and closed the closet door. He hated carrying that uniform around, but he'd been carrying everything he owned from colony to colony for a while now. When he'd taken the assignment two years back, he was frustrated at first, angry that the Alliance wasn't doing more to seek out the mysterious ship that had attacked the Normandy and killed Shepard in that attack. Even so, he had been glad of the opportunity to get away from the Citadel and it's memories. He figured that work out in the colonies would be perfect to distract him from thoughts of Shepard, that time in worlds they'd never been to together would keep her from his thoughts.

He'd figured wrong. Shepard had been a colony kid, so every damn port he'd landed in made him think of her. Every girl he saw, staring at him wide-eyed from the doorways of poor, pre-fab trailers made him wonder if Shepard had grown up in a similar way, if she had gone to school in such a dismal-looking building, or learned to play softball on a field of alien grass or empty red dirt. He realized that he'd asked her very little about her childhood, and he found himself wishing he'd stopped to do so sometime before she was gone.

Even the things that weren't at all like her reminded him of her. A strange new food, a bizarre turn of colonist phraseology, and he found himself wondering what she would have thought of it, what she would have said about it. He kept finding himself thinking of everything, every goddamn thing in reference to _her_, even though she was gone and had been for so long.

He kept trying to set thoughts of her aside, but they just wouldn't go away. At best, he could ignore them for a while, but they always came back. Until Kaidan tried to forget Shepard, he had never realized how much she had come to fill every part of his life. Until he tried to bury her memory, he had never realized how much she haunted him.

And he had never realized how much he loved her until 'love' became past tense.


	7. Signing On

_Chapter 7_

_(after Freedom's Progress)_

_

* * *

_

"Well, Valkyrie?"

Shepard frowned as the man in the holograph blew out another line of smoke. She was really going to have to come up with nickname for him, especially if he kept using hers. Calling him by the title 'Illusive Man' was going to irritate her. And she was already annoyed.

"Miranda briefed you on the mission," she replied. "You want me to repeat what she said?"

"No, I want to know if you'll fight with us," he told her.

Shepard let out a frustrated breath. She knew her answer, but she didn't like it.

When she had arrived at the colony of Freedom's Progress, the scene that had greeted her was even more haunting than the two empty colonies she had visited two years ago. Those colonies had been looted and burned. This one, however, was untouched. One pre-fab building still smelled like the curry that had been sitting on the table, half finished. There was a doll lying on the floor in the bedroom. Holgraphs hung on the walls, showing smiling families, half-typed letters to relatives on Earth still flickered on abandoned computer screens. The whole place was like a still-life painting, minus the life part.

And then when she'd learned what had really happened there, it chilled her to the bone. The Collectors, horrible bug-like aliens, had frozen the colonists and taken them away. The humans had still been alive, conscious even, when they had been carted off, but they had been unable to move. Shepard had felt sick to her stomach at the thought: she remembered too well the sensation of lying in her own blood, unable to move, paralyzed for those few horrible moments before she passed out from the pain. On Mindoir, she had watched batarian slavers shoving her friends into cages, saw one of her teachers be melted down by a flame-thrower. That attack had been blood and fire and confusion; this one had been cold precision. She wasn't sure which was worse.

These were innocent people and innocent children who had been taken. And the Alliance hadn't done a goddamn thing to stop it. So far as she could tell, there had been no other ships sent out to investigate these attacks after her own ship had gone down. Part of her wanted to insist that the Alliance wouldn't just abandon these people, but the evidence seemed to the contrary. It was looking like Cerberus was the only group that would stop these attacks from happening.

"I'll work _with_ you," she told the Illusive Man at last, "At the moment. But not for you. Never _for _you."

"That's good enough," the Illusive Man said. Even through the fuzzy comm link, she could see him smiling. "With you on our side, we're sure to stop these attacks. You did a good job gathering intel. I am impressed."

"Tali deserves credit for that," Shepard told him. "Without the help of her and the quarian, Veetor, we would have just found another ghost town."

"Yeeess," he said, slowly. "It would have been good to bring Veetor in for questioning, all the same."

"Tali gave us the data we needed," Shepard told him. "We didn't need to traumatize Veetor more."

"I'm not sure I approve of your methods, but they did get results."

"If you don't like my methods, you can find someone else," she said archly.

"There _is_ no one else," he replied. "You can see now why we need you: the Collectors are working for the Reapers. I'm sure of it. And that means we need you to stand in the gap between them and humanity. We need to take this fight to the Collectors."

"I'll investigate," she told him. "And then I'll make up my mind if this so-called suicide mission is one I want to take on. I'm not sure I like the idea that you brought me back just to send me off into certain death."

"Come now," the man replied. "I have faith in your abilities - don't you?"

"I know what I can do," she nodded, "But I died, recently, so I know even the best soldier is vulnerable. And before that, I stayed alive through so many battles by being careful about my vantage point. This is just crazy - going to attack the Collectors on their own turf." She shook her head. "Besides, I don't work alone. The press liked to paint me as some lone-wolf hero, but I've always worked with a team."

"You led teams," he corrected her. "You led them well. That's why I brought _you _back - I need someone who can lead a mission the likes of which have never been attempted before."

"As I said," she replied, raising an eyebrow, "I don't work alone. I never have. When we took down Soverign, it was with the best team I've ever served with. We also had the whole Alliance fleet behind us – the council races, too. If we go to attack the Collectors – assuming we can get through the Omega 4 relay – then you'll need a small army to pull off what you're talking about."

"I'm already working on that," he told her. "I plan to give you a top-of-the-line ship and all the help you need to build an excellent team."

"I had a good team," she told him. "I trusted that team. I'll work with them, thanks, so keep your list."

"Your old team is...indisposed," the Illustive Man told her.

Shepard gritted her teeth. She was afraid of that. As much as she hated to ask for information from this man, knowing full well he probably wouldn't tell her the whole story, she felt she had to ask all the same. Jacob hadn't known anything beyond the fact that her team had survived the attack on the Normandy, but maybe his boss knew what everyone was up to.

"Alright," she said. "I'll bite. Where are they?"

"Not sure," he shrugged. "You've been gone a long time. They moved on."

Shepard fought to hide a scowl. She hoped the pixelated holograph obscured the momentary flash of frustration across her features.

"Where's Kaidan - Alenko?" she asked before she could think better of it. She only barely managed to tack on his last name, lest the Illusive Man think that she was on a first name basis with her former lieutenant.

"He's with the Alliance," came the reply. The Illusive Man sounded a little...questioning, as though he was considering her question and wondering about it. Shepard mentally kicked herself. She didn't need to hand this prick any more information about herself and her crew than she needed to. He already knew too much. She just hoped he didn't know about Kaidan.

"His file is surprisingly well classified," the Illusive Man went on. "He was promoted to a Staff Commander. That is all we know."

"Promoted?" Shepard repeated. Well good for Kaidan. He deserved it. Though, she thought, that did mean he now officially out-ranked her. If they ever met again, the rules of engagement between them as officers would change. Officially, as a Specter, she was outside of the chain of command. And it wasn't like they had acted much like CO and subordinate in the end, anyhow. So what that would mean for who was giving orders to whom, Shepard couldn't say. She knew how bossy she could be. She had gotten used to doing as she pleased as a Specter. Taking orders from anyone, even Kaidan, would be a challenge at this point. Though the idea was curiously...arousing, actually.

"He has been out of all contact for a while now," the Illusive Man went on, eying her curiously. "Though I doubt he would join Cerberus..."

"He probably wouldn't," Shepard said quickly, wanting to change the subject. "Alright, what about Garrus?"

Once again, the Illusive Man seemed to be studying her expression. "The turian disappeared after you died," he said. "He was quite distraught, apparently. Left the Citadel and hasn't been heard from since."

Shepard frowned at that. She was worried about Kaidan, about how he had reacted to her death. But at least he was still with the Alliance, and the Alliance, for all their faults, took care of their own. If Garrus had dropped right off of the map, however, there was no telling what had happened to him. Garrus had always been hot-headed. Kaidan, she figured, would keep himself safe, but Garrus – well, there was no telling what trouble he could get himself into if he wasn't thinking clearly.

"Alright," she said, not bothering to hide her concern now, "What about Liara? Tali? Wrex, even?"

The Illusive Man gave details on them one by one. Shepard nodded at the news that Wrex was with the clans, frowned at the news that Liara was working for the Shadow Broker – that seemed unlikely. Tali had dropped off the radar again, so it looked like Shepard was on her own.

"I'm still a Specter," she told him. "And I'm still Alliance."

"You were declared missing in action," he replied.

"So I'll get reinstated. Surely they won't ignore this problem." _I hope_, she added silently, though she was seriously suspecting that they would.

"Go ahead," the Illusive Man shrugged. "You can always try to get their help. They haven't shown much interest in this problem before now, though."

She sighed. This didn't sound promising.

"Alright," she said. "So my only allies are Cerberus, it seems. Give me the list and the ship and I'll get to work. The sooner I figure this mess out, the sooner I can go home, right?"

His grin was eerie, even through the holograph.

"I knew I didn't make a mistake with you, Valkyrie," he said. "You make a fine einherjar."

"A what?"

"Surely you know the old tales: how the Valkyrie selected fallen heroes from the battlefields and brought them back to life to fight for the gods at the the end of the world."

"I know the story," she said. "I'd forgotten the name." She frowned, "Somehow, that isn't very comforting. The Valkyrie did the choosing of the dead. They weren't the dead that got chosen."

"Close enough," he shrugged.

"So you think of yourself as some god who has heroes fighting at his beck and call, do you?"

"I prefer to think of myself as amassing an army of heroes to fight for humanity at the possible end of our species – with you as the Valkyrie general, of course."

"How flattering," she said, eyes narrowing. "Though, as I recall, the king of the gods stripped his Valkyrie general of her immortality for defying him. You planning on taking me out if I don't do exactly as you wish?"

"You know your Norse mythology," the Illusive Man said approvingly.

"Well, when you get the nickname, it's good to read up on it." She gazed at him levelly. "For now, I'm helping. But don't push me."

"I believe I can convince you to work for us without...coersion," he told her. "After all, as I recall, the king of the gods took his Valkyrie general's immortality away because she put her own personal feeling above the battle plan. But that shouldn't be a problem for you, should it?"

Shepard forced her face to become impassive. That wasn't the real story. The real story went that the Valkyrie general had defied the king of the gods to save the life of a mortal man – her lover, in fact. Shepard wasn't sure if the Illusive Man knew that or not. She suspected he did. Or maybe he didn't and was just fishing for information.

But the danger was clear. Until she knew what _he_ knew about her – and about her feelings for Kaidan – she would have to tread lightly. Weaknesses could be used, friends could be exploited. She didn't want to put her former crew in danger. Shepard shrugged her shoulders and retreated behind the most aloof expression she could manage.

"Why would that be a problem?" she asked, loftily. "I'm a cold-hearted bitch. Or didn't they tell you that?"

The Illusive Man grinned.

"They did tell me that," he said. "I'm glad to see it's true. In that case, I think it's time to introduce you to your new crew. Though I think you already know your pilot."

"Hey, commander," a voice said. Shepard turned and stared.

"Joker?" she asked, incredulously.

Joker was standing behind her in the comm room, looking both sheepish and – for him anyways – delighted.

"Just like old times, huh?" he asked.

Shepard blinked. Then, for the first time since she had woken up, she genuinely smiled.

* * *

_Ugh, enough with the illusive man already. The guy gives me the creeps. Even writing him weirds me out. Now, back to our regularly scheduled Shenko..._


	8. At the Helm

_Chapter 8_

_(at the helm)_

**Note**: I mentioned this before, but if you haven't read the earlier stories (Valkyrie and Chosen), you might want to, because there are references to them that won't make sense otherwise.

_

* * *

_

"So this new Normandy - It's the Valkyrie's ride," Joker said. "Get it? The Ride of the Valkyrie?"

Shepard raised an eyebrow.

"Okay, okay," he said, raising his hands. "It's bad."

Shepard chuckled. Joker had not changed a bit. The fact he was very much the same made her feel relaxed for the first time since this whole debacle had begun. Even now, sitting there in his helmsman's seat, he looked exactly as she remembered: scruffy beard, ratty baseball cap... Truly, she didn't know how he had managed to break in the Cerberus cap so badly. It looked four years old, not four months old.

"And see," he said, patting the arm of his chair. "Leather seats!"

"Glad to see you're keeping this all in perspective, Joker," she told him. "Evil Cerberus can be forgiven if they make the seats out of leather."

"Well, duh," he said, rolling his eyes. "Shifty-looking cows were meant to be turned into upholstery."

Shepard smiled and shook her head. She had walked all over the ship in the last few hours, meeting the entire crew, seeing to the stations. She had poked her nose into every place in the ship – even the men's restrooms, though EDI, the AI on the ship, had quickly shooed her out.

And after seeing the whole ship, she felt...conflicted. She didn't trust Cerberus, but her inital reaction was that she did trust the crew. At least, most of them. She found them to be...decent. No, good even. The engineering crew had stood up for her after she died. She had never even known them and they'd been willing to risk a court-martial for her. Dr. Chakwas had left the Alliance to join her – Joker, too. Even the chirpy Yeoman Kelly Chambers seemed – well, miguided, but well-meaning. Shepard was having trouble reconciling this crew with the crazies who had carried out the projects she'd stopped when fighting Cerberus all those years ago.

And as she walked the ship, she also was hearing reports about what the Alliance and Council had done to her reputation after her death that troubled her. She wasn't personally offended, just...disturbed that they would so deliberately ignore the facts. Well, hell, she thought, they had ignored the facts about Saren. But you'd think a Reaper attacking the Citadel would change things. Apparently not.

But there was still plenty to give her pause about Cerberus. First of all, the AI, though personable, had clearly told her that it was using surveillance systems in every area of the ship. Shepard realized she was being monitored at every turn. Aside from the very obvious problem of things like dressing and bathing, there was the sense that she couldn't say or do anything that might tip her hand to Cerberus. In her life, she had always taken comfort in rare moments of privacy, being able to set aside the warrior persona and just be...herself.

But these people had brought her back to play the warrior, and she didn't want them to see the woman inside. She was in the weaker position here, in spite of her role as commanding officer. Until she could take back her life on her own terms, she didn't feel comfortable at all. She would have to be careful.

So feeling torn between a grudging admiration of some of the crew and uneasiness about her role here, she had finally come to the helm to speak with Joker. She had unwittingly wandered in to an argument between him and the AI. After asking the AI about its – or maybe, _her_self – the thing called itself a she, Shepard had turned to ask Joker about how things were going. The helmsman seemed inclined to tease, but not to talk. He had plenty to say about the leather seats and shutter controls, but avoided all discussion of the past.

"So how's the rest of the old crew doing?" Shepard asked at last. Maybe if she was more direct, he wouldn't be able to avoid her questions. She was, however, very conscious of the blue sphere that represented the AI's presence in the room. Joker slanted a glance towards it as well before replying, "Ah, well, they broke up, commander. We were your crew. The Alliance just...sealed files, shut everything away. There's not much to say."

"I see," Shepard nodded. She wanted to ask about Kaidan, but in front of the AI and any monitoring devices it had on, she decided not to.

"Alen..." Joker broke off. "All of the crew really missed you. I mean..." he paused again. "Hell, we fell apart without you." He fell silent and turned away.

"Okay," Shepard nodded. She wasn't going to press this. "Fair enough. Set a course for the Citadel, Joker."

"The Citadel?" Joker blinked and looked back over his shoulder at her. "Why?"

"I need to tell the Council I'm alive," she said. When Joker looked astounded, she said, "I'm still an Alliance woman at heart. I'm going to make that as clear as I can."

"Okaaay, commander," Joker said, slowly. He thought about it for a moment, then added, "But you know, I don't think..." But when he turned to look at her, Shepard had walked away.

* * *

Joker scowled as he turned back to the computer before him.

He wanted to talk to Shepard, really, he did. It was just that he had never been good at talking-type stuff before and he had gotten worse at it over the last two years. He had loosened up around the crew of the old Normandy, gotten along with Alenko, in particular. But now, after spending over a year being grounded, bored, and often drunk, he didn't quite know what to say to the woman who had saved his life and lost her own in the process.

Really, Joker thought, how did you apologize for something like that? It was unsettling enough just to have Shepard back. She looked all the worse for wear with those scars and without any hair. If he needed a constant reminder of what he'd done to her, there it was. So even though he knew he'd screwed up big time, he just couldn't bring himself to talk about it. It didn't help that in the past, Alenko had made sure that Joker felt like complete shit every time the two had met. Garrus and Wrex and the rest of the crew hadn't been much better. They had left him alone in his guilt for years.

And now, even if he could have found the words to say, he wasn't about to say them in front of the snippy AI who was watching his every move.

So because he didn't know how to say he was sorry, Joker resolved to keep Shepard alive. If he could helm this ship better than the last time, he'd be able to make up for the past.

And he could help in other ways, too. After all, he had sent Alenko a message just before he left on this mission. Hopefully, Joker thought, that message might start to set things right on that front as well. Though he did hope Alenko liked his women bald.

* * *

Kaidan looked at the message again, wondering what on earth it meant.

_Alenko -  
__I know you blame me. But I'm gonna make it up to you. I can't say more right now, in case this account is being watched. But I'll bring her back to you.  
__- Joker_

The address was one Kaidan hadn't recognized. He had almost deleted the message, except that the subject line in the inbox had caught his eye:

_Hey, Alenko-Dickhead. Message from Joker – read it!_

Annoyed, he had opened the message, then read it about four times.

Who was Joker bringing back, exactly? Kaidan wondered. In another life, he would have assumed Joker meant the Normandy, but the ship was long gone. There was another possibility, but Kaidan really didn't want to think about that. Kaidan sincerely hoped Joker hadn't gone on a quest with Liara to bring back Shepard's body. He had no desire to see that sight – now or ever.

He closed his extranet account, paid for the use of the public terminal, then stood and walked to the nearest transit station. He was already late for meeting Dean at the club. Checking his mail had taken longer than he expected. He had more mail than he expected this time, though the fact that he'd cleared up two months of message in less than two hours was a tribute to how few people he spoke to these days. To hear from someone from the old crew was especially strange.

Well, Kaidan thought, whatever Joker was up to, he didn't want anything to do with it. At this point, he was ready to just leave his old life behind and pretend it never happened. And yet, even as Kaidan thought that, he looked out at a view of the wards from a nearby window and a host of memories came flooding back. The scene reminded him instantly of talking with Shepard at a similar vantage point. Once he had said something stupid about old vids and love, another time, they had both been a little drunk and talked about the past. The last such conversation, he had tried to convince her that they should stay apart and act as if they were nothing more than officers. The resolution to 'take a break' had lasted all of one week. It had been one of the longest weeks of Kaidan's life.

Kaidan frowned as he tried to push those thoughts from his mind. He was trying to leave those memories behind, he told himself.

Too bad the memories never wanted to cooperate.

* * *

Councilor Anderson sat at his desk in his office. He frowned at his computer as he read the message once more.

_[Sender classified] __Confirmed that Commander Shepard is working with Cerberus. Unclear if she has been with them these past two years, or has been operating independently before now. Recommend caution when dealing with her. Motives unknown._

Anderson frowned.

Shepard working with Cerberus. So the rumors were true.

He had been hearing them for months now, whispered in corners, flowing through the ranks. It seemed that everyone had heard it, but no one knew who from – and no one had actually seen her. It was as if someone was feeding them information, he thought. And he had a feeling that Cerberus was behind that intel.

But now one of the council's own Specters had uncovered the same information. Shepard was alive, she was on a ship that sounded supiciously like the old Normandy, and had been seen fueling up said ship somewhere near Omega.

For her to be that far out in the traverse, working with Cerberus... It was troubling.

Anderson had always trusted Shepard before. He had been her mentor – and she had been his chance to make up for his mistakes with the Specters. He hadn't made the cut, but he thought if he helped her to do so, he could provide humanity with the hero it needed – the hero that he had not quite been.

In return for his trust, Shepard had gone beyond his expectations. She had secured humanity's survival and given humanity a place of power in the galaxy. She had put him on the Council, given him the chance to make a difference for humanity. Much as he disliked the paperwork, he was honored by her choice.

And then, after she had done all of that, she vanished. He had lost a lot of face when she was reported dead. Soon her name was drug through the dirt, her visions of the Reapers mocked in every corner. Books had been written about it, whole vids dedicated to smearing her name. And with her downfall, his own reputation took a beating.

It angered him, but Anderson had learned long ago that anger didn't help anyone. Action did. And so, rather than sit back and wait to gather more intel, he decided to write to her. He wanted to hear from Shepard what was going on. He wasn't one to believe anything until he had seen her for himself.

He knew Shepard's old address. He just wondered if she'd be checking it.


	9. Misdirections

_Chapter 9_

_(misdirections)_

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* * *

_

**Note: **The first half of this chapter is a remix of the short story I wrote called, "How the Holo Got There." I was thinking of Kyrie when I wrote that 1st person story, but this has been updated to fit this particular tale. Kay. Back to the story...

* * *

Shepard walked into the room, then stopped dead in her tracks.

"Big place," she murmured, unwittingly echoing Kaidan's words from many years ago.

"This is the captain's cabin," the voice replied immediately. "The crew refer to it as 'the loft.'"

Shepard jumped a little at the sound of the AI's voice. Though she knew that she was being watched at all times, having the AI repeatedly show up to give her a guided tour was unnerving. Shepard wasn't sure if she just wanted to forget the AI was there, or to be constantly aware of it so that she didn't slip up and give the Illusive Man any more info about her inner state of mind than he could already guess at. So long as he was watching her, she wanted to keep some privacy, even if it was only in her own head.

"This place looks a little too perfect," Shepard murmured, echoing yet another friend. The late Ashley Williams had once said that of the Citadel Presidium. Like the Presidium, the captain's quarters were gleaming and white and had a faint hum that seemed to buzz from in Shepard's own brain.

"Lemme guess," she said. "This place is bugged, too."

"The ship has several monitoring devices in various locations..." EDI began.

"Yeah, that's what I thought," Shepard sighed. "I might as well start disabling them as I find them. Don't really like the idea of our mutual _illusive_ friend watching me sleep."

"The Illusive Man has already seen you..."

"Yeah, I know," Shepard interrupted. "He's seen me blown to hell and naked and God knows what else. Tell me this, EDI. Does anyone else have access to your surveillance footage?"

"Officer Lawson has full access..." EDI began.

"But I outrank her," Shepard said, suddenly latching onto an idea. "If I order you not to show footage of my quarters, you have to follow that order, right?"

"The Illusive Man's orders supersede yours," EDI told her.

"But only his orders, right?" Shepard pressed.

"That is correct," EDI said.

"Perfect," Shepard began to grin a little. "Then try this on, EDI: no footage recorded on this ship is to be given to anyone other than the Illusive Man. Understood?"

"Yes, Commander," EDI replied.

Shepard let out a breath. Okay, so it wasn't freedom from spying, but it helped a little. Now she could worry less about vids of her sleeping ending up on the extranet.

"Oh," she added, "And that doubly includes Joker."

"I do not understand that order," EDI replied.

"Nevermind," Shepard said. She walked into the room and took a look around. There was an empty fish tank taking up one whole wall. It seemed a bit of a waste, but the water was somehow soothing, especially to Shepard's now-buzzing implants. The wardrobe held some various other armors: all ugly and covered with Cerberus logos so Shepard ignored them. The BDUs also had Ceberus logos on them, which Shepard frowned at. She had settled for the officer's uniform because it seemed to assert her authority the best. It was ironic, however, that it had a Cerberus logo right over her heart. Here she was, the 'commander' of this ship, and yet clearly she was under the thumb of Cerberus.

Shepard closed the door of the wardrobe only to see her reflection staring back at her from a mirror on the closet door. She stared at her face: a face that looked familiar, and yet not quite the same. The bone structure was the same, the skin the same hue, the eyes now both the same shade of icy gray-blue. But her scars were an ugly, red web across her cheeks, and without hair, she looked so...harsh. Shepard saw that on the dresser beside the closet that someone - Miranda, most likely, had left her a makeup kit. Shepard snorted and shook her head. She had never been one for cosmetics. But then again, she thought, cocking her head and looking into the mirror at her own weary eyes, perhaps she might take a crack at makeup before she went to speak with the Council. She looked frightening enough with the scars and the haircut. She might as well try to appear a little feminine - or at least not to look like she'd woken up in a lab with her head shaved, even if that is what had happened. She tilted her head, then noticed something and frowned.

"EDI," she asked. "What did they do to my scar?"

"Your scars will heal in time, Commander. I suggest you speak with Doctor Chakwas..."

"No. The other one. I one had it since I was a kid."

"I do not understand," EDI replied. "Much of your skin was infused with a weave to make it tougher. It is likely your scars disappeared with the growth of the new bio-synthetic epidermis."

"Right," she murmured. How strange. She never thought to miss that old scar, that reminder of the eye lost in the attack on Mindoir and the innocence lost along with it, but somehow...she did.

Shepard then opened the drawers of the dresser and completely forgot about her scar. She pulled the thing out of the drawer with her thumb and forefinger and held it up to the light.

"What the hell is this?" she asked.

"Officer Lawson took the liberty of finding you undergarmets," EDI replied.

"Holy shit," Shepard murmured. "So that's why I was wearing lace when I woke up. I wondered..." She stared into the drawer, completely amazed and frankly, confused by the mess. "EDI," she said, "where are the tank-bras? What about undershorts? This is... What is this stuff?"

"I believe it is called lingerie," EDI replied.

"Lingerie," Shepard repeated. "Does Lawson actually wear this stuff - to _fight _in?"

"My surveillance vids show that she does," EDI replied. Shepard shook her head. Yeah, it was definitely good that she had locked down any surveillance footage of the Normandy. Otherwise, Miranda would have an extranet fan following in no time. Then again, Shepard thought, maybe the woman already did. Well, hell, no wonder Lawson's clothing seemed to ride up every crack on her body. Shepard shook her head. How could any woman fight while wearing this stuff?

Well, it looked like she would be finding out the answer to that question. If this was all she had, she'd be stuck with it, at least until she could find something different. Then again, as a woman who had just taken military issue clothing all her life, going shopping for underwear seemed incredibly strange. She had only done so once before, and while the results had been...wonderful...she still wasn't used to it.

Shepard put the panties back in the drawer and closed it. Well, the upside was, at least when she found Kaidan again, she'd be well stocked. The thought amused her as her eyes strayed to the bed. It was big enough for two, and that thought suddenly made her feel lonely. Shepard turned her back on the bed and walked over to the desk: someone had hung a model of the old Normandy over it – as if she needed to feel any more nostalgic. There was a laptop sitting there. She flipped it open and saw it was hooked up to the one downstairs. Her inbox already held several messages, mostly from the Illusive Man regarding her armor. One, however, caught her eye:

_From Councilor Anderson:  
__On the off chance the rumors are true and you actually are still alive, I need you to come meet with me on the Citadel. A lot has changed in the last two years. __You put me on the Council, and it's only fair that you be allowed to speak for yourself about what we've been hearing._

Shepard's first impulse was a sense of affection for her former captain and relief that he was alive and had contacted her. Then she scowled as she finished the message. She certainly caught the implied reprimand in those words: _you be _allowed _to speak for yourself about what we've been hearing_. What had they been hearing, exactly? she wondered.

Shepard frowned. The message needed an answer, but surely her mail was being monitored. Well, she shrugged. There was no help for it. She'd have to chance it. She typed one sentence, then stopped and hit the comm link.

"Joker," she called down to the bridge.

"Yeah, commander?"

"How long until we reach the Citadel?"

"Well, seeing as how we're still on the other frickin' end of the traverse, three days."

"You going to jump us through every mass relay on the way?"

"That's the fastest route," he told her. "If you wanted to get somewhere quick, why didn't you just stop at Omega?"

_Because that's what the Illusive Man wanted,_ she thought to herself. Out loud, she simply said, "Alright, thanks Joker."

"Sure commander."

She let the link switch off and finished the message:

_Sir-  
__I'm on my way. ETA, 3 days from now.  
__- Shepard_

She nodded, then sent it. Shepard sighed and let her gaze trail over the other items on her desk. Next to the laptop, the Illusive Man or Miranda or someone had scanned her medals into a holo picture. Shepard shook her head. What a crock. As if she needed reminding of what she'd accomplished before. As if she was in any mood to repeat it now.

Shepard's eyes then strayed to something else on her desk. Something very...pink.

"EDI," she said slowly, "What the hell is _that_?"

"I do not understand, Commander. You will have to be more specific."

"What is that picture on my desk?"

"Your medals were placed here..."

"No, the other one."

"Yeoman Chambers picked that painting out and placed it in a holo for you," EDI said. "She believed it would soothe you. It is by a famous 21st Century artist known as Thomas Kinkade. He's was known as 'The Painter of Light'."

"It's a goddamn cottage. With flowers. Pink flowers."

"If I dim the lights in the cabin, the colors change," EDI explained. "It was part of a series of exclusive prints..."

"Stop," Shepard said flatly. "No dimming lights, no cottages, no flowers."

"If you do not like it..."

"I don't," she said wearily. "Just replace it with something."

"I have access to the extranet and can find you any image that is not under copyright," EDI told me. "I also have access to the Illusive Man's private collection. What would you like to look at?"

"Kaidan," Shepard said, the word tumbling out of her mouth before she could stop it.

_Damn_, Shepard thought. Now she'd gone and said it out loud.

"Would that be Staff Commander Kaidan Alenko?" EDI asked, her voice not betraying any emotion. But Shepard wondered if she had imagined that slight pause before the AI had answered.

"Never mind," Shepard said. "That would show up on the security cams, wouldn't it?"

"It would," EDI replied.

Shepard looked over her shoulder and spotted the camera in question. Though from this angle...

"EDI," Shepard asked, "Can that camera see this photo frame when I'm sitting right here like this?"

"No," EDI replied.

"Can any of the cameras in this room see it if I'm sitting here - or standing here?" Shepard asked.

"No," EDI said again.

Well, hell, Shepard thought. Why not? If the Illusive Man hadn't been watching and missed that little slip just now, then maybe...

"Alright," Shepard said. "Find me a picture of Kaidan. But set up the holo so that it turns itself off the moment it's visible from any of the cameras. That is an order. And don't tell anyone about it at all. Hopefully, the one person who can override that order will never ask."

"Very well, commander," EDI said.

"Okay then," Shepard said, nodding firmly. "Find me a picture of Kaidan." _And if I ever find him, _Shepard thought_, please God, let me remember to change the picture back to the flowered cottage before he sees it._

"What picture would you like, commander?" EDI asked.

Shepard blinked, then felt her heart beat a little faster as images of Kaidan went flashing by the screen. There was a rather bad photo – it looked like an ID of when he'd first enlisted. Then there was another picture – a still from a vid following some rescue mission, then a formal shot of him and about a dozen other officers, all holding up their omnitools in salute. It must have been some tech training class picture, Shepard realized. She blinked as a blurry shapshot from Eden Prime flashed by. Kaidan was carrying someone over his shoulder. A moment later, Shepard realized it was _her_, her jumpsuit-clad rear turned right towards the camera.

"What is _that_, EDI?" she asked, frowning.

"This is a popular picture on the extranet," EDI told her. "It is usually cropped like this, though." She zoomed in so that Shepard's ass filled the screen.

"Great," she said, rolling her eyes. "Horn dog humans..."

"Actually, this picture is very popular among the asari porn sites..."

"Find something else," Shepard said wearily. She didn't want to think about that, she really didn't.

"If you want to look at Staff Commander Alenko's posterior instead of your own, then here is a good shot."

Shepard blinked as another image filled the screen. The AI was right. It was a good shot. Kaidan was half turned and climbing up a flight of stairs. He had a grim look on his face and he was following someone – following her, she saw. He was looking back at the camera over his shoulder. It was from Feros, she realized, recognizing those horrible concrete stairwells that she'd run up and down with Kaidan at her back. It must have been a snapshot that Elizabeth Baynam had taken. She'd whipped out a camera before they'd left, begging to let her send in reports on their heroism to all the news networks. Only the Citadel News Net had picked up the story, and Shepard figured that was because Emily Wong thought she owed them a favor or something. Feros was a small colony – few people cared about it. That kind of thing was so typical of the media, Shepard thought.

"That's a nice view," she admitted. "But not in that armor. I burned that crap down into omnigel and bought him a Hydra VI after we left Feros."

"The Liberator armor is strong and well-built," EDI said. "Better than the Hydra..."

"It's yellow," she said flatly. "He looks like a bumblebee. A handsome bumblebee, but a bumblebee."

"I could tint the photo to make it black and white if you do not like the color," EDI said.

"You know what?" Shepard said, standing. "Forget it. Just..."

"What about this one?" EDI said.

Shepard turned back to the photo frame and found her heart had somehow lodged itself in her throat.

"Damn," she murmured. "Kaidan."

It was some stock photo, one sent out with rosters and dossiers. He was looking at the camera with one eyebrow slightly raised. Serious, calm, completely in control. Shepard knew that wasn't his only expression, but it was the one that she'd seen first – the one that made her want to see more.

"That'll do, EDI," she said curtly, blinking a little at the sudden tears in her eyes. "Use that one."

"Done, Commander," EDI said, and the frame flickered for a second, then the image held steady. "I like it as well."

Shepard raised an eyebrow. "_You_ like it? You're a program."

"His features are very regular," EDI explained. "They fall well within the proportions accorded to human beauty."

"They sure do," she agreed. "But don't be getting any ideas, EDI."

"I do not understand, Commander. I am an AI, and am not subject to human emotions or attractions."

"Lucky you," she muttered.

Shepard took one last look at Kaidan's holo, then left the room in silence.

* * *

"Status update." The Illusive Man's holograph flickered in the air of the comm room. Miranda stood in the center of the floor, her arms folded over her chest.

"Shepard appears healthy," the woman replied. "If tired. She's taken command of this ship with remarkable ease. The crew already admire her. I heard she's promised them better food."

"You sound displeased," the man said. He himself sounded amused.

"She's...unpredictable," Miranda said. "And she's gaining much influence already. She's set our course for the Citadel."

"I know," the Illusive Man let out a smoky breath. "I anticipated that. Don't worry. She won't find anyone to help her on the Citadel. Hands are already being tied. The only loose end is Commander Alenko."

"What about him?" Miranda asked at once.

"He's on the Citadel. We don't know why and we don't know for how long."

"She might try to recruit him," Miranda observed. "Perhaps she would be more at ease if she had some of her former crew..."

"No. Absolutely not. Shepard needs to be handled...delicately now. If our intel is correct, she may have had...feelings for him. If it comes down to his life or the success of this mission, she may choose him. She's chosen him before."

"I did my homework," Miranda frowned. "I brought her back as the same, cool-headed person she was before. I made sure nothing interfered with her mind."

"This is her heart, we're talking about, Miranda. And that's something I just don't trust. She needs allies, but they must be known quantities. Otherwise, we're setting a bomb in our midst. Commander Alenko is not a known quantity – not as far as Shepard is concerned. My sources say that he's in thick with the Alliance and unlikely to trust us. Furthermore, my sources say that he did not appear to be greatly affected by Shepard's death. If he does not have feelings for her any longer, then that could cause her distress. We need to get a wedge between her and any forces we can't control. That includes Commander Alenko."

Miranda hesitated briefly. Then she nodded.

"Very well," she said.

* * *

_It's a plot! A plot, I tell you! (Or maybe it's unclear writing in ME2? Nah...) It's a PLOT!_


	10. Flashback: Shore Leave

**Note:** Thanks for all the reviews! It's addictive, helpful, and just giddy-making get feedback, so thanks. And it makes me want to keep writing and posting regularly, so...well, it's a vicious cycle, but in a good way. (← ?)

Re: Horizons – you've asked about it. It is coming - eventually. It totally is. However...its a while off because 1) I can't bring myself to play it just now and 2) I want to give it a proper treatment. I feel that means 3) I want to set up what baggage each character is carrying into Horizons. That scene just had a lot of things unsaid, and I want to try and make sense of it, while staying within the 'canon' as much as possible.

And I have some smex scenes that need to be tossed in before then. You know, 'cause this much TIM _really _needs to be counteracted by something more fun. So...

* * *

_Chapter 10_

_(flashback: a hotel in the Wards, five days after the Battle of the Citadel)_

_

* * *

_

Kaidan looked at the quiet room, a sudden sense of unease settling over him.

Maybe this was a mistake.

He glanced out of the window, the holograph blinds showing him a view of the Ward below, but masking him from sight to anyone who might be looking up. The room itself was simple, spartan even. There was a chair, a vid screen, a single lamp, and a door leading into a private bathroom so small that the toilet was practically inside of the tiny shower. In the center of the room was a bed for two. Kaidan's eyes kept straying to that bed.

The place was clean, at least. It wasn't exactly quiet, as he had heard children running up and down the hall earlier. He supposed that if half the Citadel had been destroyed, it made sense that almost every hotel left standing was full up. Truthfully, he'd been surprised to find a room at all. He felt a little guilty for taking it, but then, it had been free and he had only booked it for two days.

Kaidan frowned. Two days. That was what had become of their promised two-week shore leave. The Normandy SR-1 would be repaired in a few days time and they would be out on the next assignment. As proud as he was of Shepard, of what they had accomplished together and of her rising star as a Specter and the darling of the Council, he really wished that some good old Alliance procedures applied to their situation. After over a year on the mission, they clearly had earned some down time. But the Council wanted to get Shepard back out into the Traverse as quickly as possible. So the promised two weeks of shore leave had become two days of off duty time.

And his promise to take Shepard on a private vacation had turned into two secretive nights in this hotel.

Kaidan looked to the side table. He'd tried to buy something for her this time. He had wanted to buy wine, but besides knowing nothing about vintages, there had been a rush on all the food stores on the Citadel. People had stocked up on booze first, which struck him as strange, but so it was. He had found an old-style Earth coffee hut by accident on his way here, and miraculously, it had been open. But the drinks were cold by now, and there was no way to warm them. Once again, Kaidan wondered if he should just call this off.

Before he could reconsider yet again, there was a chime from the door. Kaidan crossed the small room in three strides and pressed the button to open it.

It was Shepard. She was standing in the hallway wearing civvies and a hat, of all things. He had no idea she owned anything other than uniforms. Her pants were slim, her boots came up to her knees, making her legs appear endlessly long. She wore a simple jacket and a button-down shirt under it. The tiny buttons that marched down her chest made Kaidan suddenly itch to get his fingers on them. The collar was open, showing her pale throat. With the beret covering her hair, it was as if she was cheekily playing at wearing an old-style military uniform. On her, it looked both mannish and feminine at the same time. Kaidan found he liked the effect – a lot.

Shepard slipped past him, carrying a large bag. She set it next to the bedside table as Kaidan shut and locked the door behind her.

"Nice view," she said, taking off the hat and shaking out her hair. "This place was a little hard to find."

"That was the idea," he replied. Now that she was here, unbuttoning her jacket, he was beginning to feel uneasy again. On the one hand, he was eager to see those clothes come off of her. On the other hand, he still wasn't sure if he fully approved of the venue.

"Coffee?" she asked, pointing to the cups. "Oh, excellent, Earth brew."

"It's..." he didn't speak fast enough to stop her from taking a sip and making a face. "Cold," he finished lamely.

"Oh," she said, setting the cup back down.

Kaidan crossed to her. "I tried to find you...something. But the stores..."

"It's a madhouse out there," she agreed. "That's why I'm late. I got delayed by the Council, then I decided I'd better change. I wanted to avoid being recognized and well, you can't show up to a seduction in armor, now can you?"

Kaidan frowned and looked away.

"Whoa, hey," Shepard said, putting her fingers to his chin and turning his face back to hers. "What did I say?"

"This isn't..." Kaidan began. He looked over her shoulder, out the window at the Ward below, teeming with people. "We can't do this, Shepard."

"Can't do what?" she asked him.

"We can't just...have sex in this hotel room."

"I suppose we could find another garden..." she began, going for humor to hide her disappointment.

"Shepard," he said, "When I asked you here..." He broke off in frustration. "I wanted to take you to Earth."

"I remember," she said. "To spent two weeks in that cabin near Vancouver that you talked about. Don't think you're going to get out of that one. I fully intend to hold you to it."

Kaidan opened his mouth to speak, waved a hand at the room, then let out a frustrated breath.

"Okay," Shepard nodded, considering him. "I think I know what you're trying to say." She turned to look at the room. "It's not a bad place, you know. Considering that the Presidium is full up – not to mention crawling with Alliance military and dignitaries and the press..."

"It's not the hotel," he said. "It's that... I'm not a cloak-and-dagger kind of guy, Shepard. This is just way too..." He couldn't find the words to explain it. "Something," he finished.

"Come here," she pulled him towards the bed.

"Shepard..." he began.

"Just...come here, okay?" She sat down on the bed, then scooted back to lay down with her head on the pillow. "Come talk to me." She held her hand out to him.

Kaidan hesitated a moment, then climbed onto the bed and lay down next to her. They lay side by side, looking into one another's eyes. Kaidan reached out and ran his calloused thumb over Shepard's lips. She smiled at once.

"This isn't how you wanted it," she said, softly.

"Not at all," he replied. "I wanted..." He frowned and rolled onto his back. "I want to give you..."

"Warm coffee?"

"Among other things."

She scooted close to him and laid her head half on his shoulder, half on his chest.

"Such as?" she asked. Kaidan fell silent, and for a minute, she wondered if he would say anything at all.

"Look, Shepard," he said at last, still looking up at the ceiling, "When I asked you to come meet me here..."

"Yeah?" This close, she could see the shadow of hair on his jaw and had the sudden desire to lick the stubble. But seeing as how he was clearly struggling to find what he wanted to say, she waited to let him finish.

"Damn..." He closed his eyes and pressed his fingers to his forehead.

"You're not getting a headache, are you?" she half-sat up in concern. "If you're not feeling well, just say so."

"No, I'm fine," he shook his head. He tugged on her shoulder slightly until she lay back down beside him. "I don't want to be meeting you in a hotel room like..."

"An asari prostitute?" she said, chuckling as she said it.

He frowned. "Or something. An affair, at the very least."

"Well, this _is _an affair..."

"Yeah, but I don't want it to be..." He broke off, frowning again. "I mean, you deserve better than this."

She looked at him, her eyes narrowing. "You'd better not be implying that I deserve better than _you,_ Kaidan. As far as I'm concerned, you're the best thing that has ever happened to me."

He shifted to gaze down at her and she met his gaze. Then he pulled her into his arms so that she was pressed tightly against his chest, her cheek resting against the material of his shirt. He was warm, she thought, always warm. She let her eyes close peacefully.

"Kaidan," she said. "I understand that you're uncertain about this, but I, for one, am damn glad you asked me. I kept thinking about it all through my meeting with Ambassador Udina this morning. I bet he thought I was drunk the way I kept staring off into space with an absent smile on my face." Kaidan chuckled at the mental picture that gave him.

"We may not have much time," she went on, "but I plan to make the most of these two days with you. I brought take-out. I hope it will hold us, because I don't plan to leave this room at all."

"You want to spend the next two days just having sex?" he asked, his voice rumbling beside her ear.

"That wasn't your intention when you asked me to join you here?" she asked teasingly.

"No. Well, yes. I mean..." he made a frustrated sound. "Damn it, Shepard."

"Kaidan," she said, rolling on top of him so that she could rest her chin on his chest and look down into his eyes. "If this isn't what you want, tell me so. If you want me to leave..."

"No," he said firmly, wrapping his arm around her waist to pull her close.

"Okay, then..."

"I care about you," he said, his voice soft, his eyes intense. "So damn much. I can't figure out how to say it or show it, but I do."

Shepard felt her heart skip a beat. She wanted to lean down and kiss him on the lips, but as there was evidently something he wanted to say, she willed herself to lie still and listen. He put his other arm behind his head to prop his head up and look at her.

"I respect you, Shepard. You know that."

"Of course," she told him. "And I respect you."

"You're the... It sounds so stupid to say it, but you're the best friend I've ever had."

Shepard's lips quirked into a smile. "Same here."

"But the truth is," he went on, "Every time we're together, I can't help but want to touch you. And then I think that I don't want this to be about sex – well, not _just_ about sex." He frowned, let his head drop onto the bed and scrubbed his hand over his face.

"Kaidan," she said, climbing on top of him so that she was lying along the length of him. "I think you're worrying about this too much."

"Shepard," he told her, "if someone were to find out about us..."

"Yeah, I know," she frowned. "Though, at the moment, technically, we're off duty."

"And as officers, _technically_, we're a liability if we have feelings for each other."

"Alright," she paused. "I'll ask you again. Do you want me to leave?"

"No," he said. "God help me, but no."

"Okay then," she said, nodding. "Then we figure this out."

"Figure what out?"

"Well," she said, "At the moment, I'm trying to figure out if we need to talk about our feelings any more, or if we take a break and eat something, or if we just have sex for the next two days straight and see if that doesn't solve all our problems."

Kaidan's pained expression instantly lightened into a wry smile. "And just how is having sex for two days straight – even assuming that is possible – going to solve our problems?"

"I don't know," she answered. "We'll have to see if we can do it to see if it works."

His eyes suddenly filled with lust and his body tightened. She could feel the change in him instantly.

"Is that what you want?" he asked her, his voice strained.

"I just told you it was - is," she answered.

He paused for a moment, then something flickered in his eyes.

"Take off your jacket," he said.

Shepard pulled back from him, surprised to find her heart was beating hard in her chest. "Giving me orders, lieutenant?" she asked. Her voice came out breathless.

"Take it off," he repeated.

"I'm not sure I understand," she told him, going for a teasing tone. "You're lying down, so I'm going to have a hard time getting your shirt over your head..."

Kaidan sat up and yanked his shirt off. It hit the floor at the same time her mouth dropped open. She realized she hadn't actually seen this sight since the night before Ilos. That seemed ages ago. He was exactly as she remembered though: all toned muscle and that delicious dusting of hair. It trailed down to his trousers, low-slung on his hips.

Kaidan leaned back down onto the bed, propping himself up on his elbows. Shepard realized she was straddling him, kneeling right over his crotch. She could feel him growing hard against her as his gaze trailed up her body to rest on her breasts.

"Your turn," he said, his eyes suddenly looking like they might be able to melt the clothes right off of her.

Shepard hesitated for a moment, just a moment, before she shrugged out of her jacket. She had never done a strip tease before, never taken orders like this before, but she decided she'd be damned if she let that stop her. This was Kaidan – _her_ Kaidan – and she wasn't about to hold back from him, regardless of who was running this seduction.

In truth though, she suspected that they would both be taking turns doing the seducing over the next few days.

Shepard tossed her jacket to the floor. She decided she'd done that a little too quickly. She resolved to take her time with her shirt. She began at the cuffs, slowly unbuttoning each one.

"You know," she told Kaidan, loosening her sleeves with deliberate care, "I almost didn't believe your message when I got it."

"I had to encrypt it," he told her, his throat feeling suddenly dry. He was tempted to grab one of her wrists and nibble the soft flesh on the underside. However, that would mean moving from his present position, and he didn't want to interfere with the show.

"It took me a while to figure out the pass key," she went on, reaching for the top buttons of her shirt. She seemed to think better of it though, and suddenly rocked back and stepped off of the bed. Kaidan began to sit up to follow her, but she put a hand on his chest to stay him.

"I'll be back" she promised. She turned on him and gave him a good view of her well-toned ass as she bent over to unbuckle her boots. Kaidan sat there awkwardly, as all the blood in his body headed to the vicinity of his lap.

"Ilos," she said, turning to grin at him. She then turned to the other boot. "Using that as the passkey? It was sweet."

"Sweet," he repeated. She reached forward and put one hand on the wall, her feet apart as she reached down to take off her boots. Kaidan started to stand. Up against the wall like that, she was so damn inviting...

"Hey," she said, looking over her shoulder once more. "You're supposed to wait there."

"I thought _I _was giving the orders," he said, stepping towards her. A slight shove seemed to come out of nowhere. Kaidan sat down on the bed hard, not at all hurt, but feeling a little dazed.

"Did you just..._throw_ me?" he gaped at her. "With biotics?"

"I didn't hurt you did I?" she frowned at once. "I'm sorry, I thought..."

"I'm fine," he said, his voice wondering. "I just..." He raised an eyebrow. "Shepard, you just changed the rules of engagement entirely."

"Did I?" she asked, raising an eyebrow in return.

"Oh yes," he murmured. Then, before she could react, he suddenly twisted his hand. She stumbled towards the bed, compelled by Kaidan's biotic pull. He grabbed her at the same time the pull ended and tossed her onto the mattress.

"I can think of a lot of ways this could work," he murmured, trailing a finger along her throat.

"No fighting," she said, tensing suddenly, "I don't want to hurt..."

"Of course not," he looked down at her seriously. "I would never hurt you. However," he said, ducking his head down to nibble at her ear, "I would like to try this..."

He hauled her to her feet, made sure she was standing steadily, then, suddenly, Shepard realized she couldn't move. Something warm and pulsing seemed to be pressing at her from all sides. She tried to push at it, but it was like running through neck-deep water.

"I'll stop if you like," Kaidan said, stepping behind her. "I'm being as gentle as I can."

"You...Stasis?" She found it hard to speak, but she managed to gasp the words out.

"This is...a little tricky, Shepard," he spoke directly into her ear. She realized that he was shimmering with biotic fire. "Hard to keep this up...So distracted..." He reached around her and cupped her breasts. In spite of the field surrounding her, she gasped. She had never felt so sentive before. She couldn't tell if that was an effect of the stasis field or the fact that she could do nothing but stand there and feel him touch her.

"Kaidan..." she breathed as he caressed her, his glowing hands trailing down her body to cup her between her legs.

"Does it hurt?" he murmured.

"No," she whispered. It felt good, actually, more than good. It was like floating in warm water, but with all the flickering heat of his energy rushing around her. She was beginning to forget where the touch of his hands ended and the biotics began.

"Good," he said, nibbling her ear. She could scarcely think. The feel of his teeth seemed amplified a hundredfold when she couldn't turn and meet that kiss. She felt rather than saw him unbuttoning her shirt. "Because having you like this is...So," he fumbled a little with the buttons, "Unbelievably," he slipped the last few open and rested his hand on the bare skin of her belly, "Sexy."

His hands slid down to her waistband and unbuttoned the front of her pants.

"Kaidan..." she tried to speak, but wasn't sure if she was making any sound other than a soft moan. His hand slid even lower. She gasped at his touch.

The field surrounding her grew warm and pliant. Instead of pinning her into place, Kaidan had dropped the stasis field and was now simply radiating biotic energy all around her. She realized that her own barrier was flickering all down her body. She reached her hands up to twine them in his hair, arching back to give him better access to her body.

"You broke free," he murmured against her cheek, his stubble rasping her jaw.

"Or was set loose," she murmured back. He grabbed her waist with his free hand, pulled her up against him as if he was trying to fuse their bodies together. He took her shirt in his teeth and pulled it back from her shoulders. Then, suddenly, he froze and pulled away from her. Shepard let her arms drop and turned at once to face him. He was looking down at her, his eyes widening.

"What's wrong?" she asked, her brow furrowing.

"My God," he rasped. "I didn't... You don't wear that under your clothes...all the time?"

Shepard looked down at her chest. "You mean this?" she asked. Kaidan nodded dumbly.

"No," she said. "I bought it...well, today, actually."

He swallowed.

"I take it you like it?" she asked, hopefully.

"I do," he said. "Is there...more to it than that?"

"Of course," she replied. "Again, I wanted to dress properly for the seduction..."

"Show me," he rasped.

"Hey," she said, her lips twitching in amusement, "You were the one who interrupted the strip tease."

"What was I thinking?" he muttered, shaking his head. He took a step back from her and sat on the bed.

"Okay," he said. "Keep going."

"Is that another order, lieutenant?"

"Please?" he said, his lips curling in a smile.

Shepard laughed. "If you put it that way..."

She let her shirt fall to the floor, exposing the bra underneath. It was made of a silky fabric, almost completely sheer, and intricately cut. The light gray color showed off her pale skin, making it appear rosy pink. She kicked off her boots, then finished unfastened her pants and let them fall to the floor. She wore matching panties, so sheer that they concealed nothing. A pair of gray silk stockings completed the set.

Kaidan stared at her. His eyes started at her toes, made their way up to her throat, and then drifted back down again.

"I almost wore heels," she said, feeling completely naked under his gaze. It was simultaneously unnerving and arousing. "Only, I can't walk in the damn things..."

"Shepard."

Kaidan lifted his eyes to her face. What she saw there made her heart skip a beat. He looked at her as if he was in awe, as if she was the most beautiful woman he'd ever seen, not the hardened soldier she knew she was on every other day of the week.

He held out his hand to her. She felt almost shy as she put her hand into his.

He tugged her hand, pulled her to the bed, and in one swift movement had her lying on her back against the sheets.

"No tricks," he told her softly, his chest rising and falling with heavy breaths. "No powers." He stroked the side of her face. "I just want you."

She nodded, and then he was kissing her, and she felt her whole body become liquid fire.


	11. Shepard Sightings

_Chapter 11  
__(Shepard Sightings)_

**Note**: I just finished adding in a prologue (Chapter 12 of Chosen) to this story. That means that all the chapters shifted back a notch. The real update will come as soon as I finish it.

Now, back to Kaidan's angst...

_

* * *

_

Kaidan was jogging up the stairs in the wards when he heard it:

_In other news, there has been another Shepard sighting..._

Kaidan nearly stumbled. He caught himself and scowled. _This_ was why he hated places like the Citadel. It was just too damn full of the media.

_...The first human Specter and the so-called Savior of the Citadel was spotted near Omega, buying fuel for a mysterious, high-tech ship._

_Typical_, Kaidan thought. That one wasn't even original. They'd used a similar one about six months ago. In that sighting, she'd been stocking up on hot dogs and burritos as well as fuel.

Kaidan tried his best to block out the ad as he continued on towards the club. He had, over the years following Shepard's death, come to hate the press as much as she had once. He had avoided news beyond what he needed to know to get his job done over the last few years, because he always dreaded hearing these stupid 'Shepard sightings.' Though even out in the far-flung colonies of the Traverse, you could hear about them.

The very first story had hit the news a few months after her death. Kaidan was en route to his first assignment at the time, when all of a sudden, he had overheard a kiosk proclaiming that Shepard was, in fact, alive. Kaidan's heart had started pounding as hope, bright and uncertain, came flooding back into him. What if Liara had been right? What if, beyond every possibility, Shepard had survived the fall? What if she was alive and he, coward that he was, had left her alone and broken on that icy planet because he had been too afraid to go look for her battered body?

He had instantly paid for the full magazine article for his datapad. Then his heart had broken again when he realized the story was nothing more than lie, some awful stunt that some crazy person made up and the media perpetuated because it sold vids.

Unfortunately for him, that report was only the first of many. People popped up all over the place, claiming to have seen the dead Specter alive and in the flesh, running around the traverse doing all manner of things: from tossing back shots in a bar in Nos Astros to booking transports to Terra Nova to starting her own slaving ring. And just today, even Anderson had brought up the rumors.

Kaidan had ignored it all as best he could. But they bothered him deeply. It was one thing to lose Shepard to death. It was another entirely to lose her to a crowd of strangers.

And that's what it felt like had happened. With every month that passed, Shepard's legend grew, even as her reputation took a beating. The story of Elysium had come up again, distorted as ever. Kaidan knew the truth, and what had happened was, in his opinion, far more human and more admirable than anything bandied about by the talking heads on the vids. The pundits claimed Shepard was cold and made of ice. They claimed she was someone who would do anything to get the job done. It was true, he conceded, but there was so much more to her than that.

Then came the discussions about the Reapers. Shepard was labeled unstable, her every past mistake held up for the world to see. Her childhood was passed around as if it was common property; her pysch file, which should have been classified, somehow ended up on the evening news.

And always, there was the discussion of her skills - the biotics, in particular. The reporters loved to show footage of her fighting, and then say things like "She was the deadiest human the galaxy has ever known." As if that was a _bad_ thing, Kaidan thought. That deadliness was what had kept those idiots alive to even be making those stupid vids.

He was often in those vids, too. It was strange to see himself. He was always slightly surprised at his own skill, but even more so at Shepard. Seeing her in action was like watching a work of art. Whatever else she was, the woman could fight like no one he'd ever known. Not a single shot went wasted; not a single biotic pulse went amiss. If he hadn't known how completely off the cuff those battles had been, he would have assumed they were staged.

Of course, a lot of people claimed they _had_ been staged. They claimed she had been in with Saren from the beginning, they claimed she'd been part of a secret Alliance program bent on taking over the galaxy for the humans. Those conspiracy theorists often placed her with the terrorist group, Cerberus, which in Kaidan's opinion was completely ridiculous, considering how many of Cerberus's agents she'd killed in just a few short months. But reason was clearly not these people's strong suit.

It baffled Kaidan that Shepard could both become a hero and yet be so reviled all at the same time. But somehow, that's what had happened. Shepard's beauty won her admirers, even posthumously, but her stern face meant that no one saw the warmth in her eyes. To the masses of people who wanted a good story and would pay well to hear it, Shepard the paradoxical, ever-noble hero just wasn't very interesting. Shepard the cold, icy bitch who was spotted just last month in an asari strip bar – now _that_ Shepard was more to the public's liking.

And everyone _loved_ closet sex addict Shepard. Kaidan found _those_ vids most painful to overhear. Men – and women – and asari – popped up on the news vids all the time, claiming to be Shepard's secret lover. They got the spotlight even as Kaidan, who knew full well he was the true holder of that title, was hiding his feelings in the shadows. Even Mr. Dumped-Shepard-After-the-Blitz got his moment in the sun. Kaidan was disgusted by the whole thing.

But the trouble was, in the end, the stories made Kaidan begin to doubt that he had known Shepard at all.

It wasn't that he believed the idiocy, it was just that after so long, he began to wonder if perhaps he, like so many of these other people who had a passing aquaintance with Shepard, might not have been mistaken about her true nature as well. After all, how could he claim to have truly known her when he had known her for such a short amount of time?

He couldn't, for example, remember the exact color of her eyes, except as they looked in the vids. He thought she had had a way of smiling that only her friends could tell was actually a smile, but he couldn't quite recall how it looked.

And while he remembered their days together, the few times he allowed himself to look back on them, it was as if through a telescope the wrong way, or listening to voices distorted down a hall. He thought she had wanted to be with him - perhaps...for always. But then again, that might just have been his own wishful thinking. She had never told him that she loved him - had she? He didn't remember her having ever spoken the words. And while she had seemed, at the time, to give herself heart and soul to their time together, Kaidan knew that many Marines did that without any consideration for the future. They simply took pleasure and happiness where they could find it, then left it as soon as it had passed by. And while he liked to think that Shepard was not the sort of person to do that, that, like him, she was looking for something far deeper and stronger, he came to wonder if she had lived, would she have stayed with him? Would she have continued to choose him, day after long day, month after month and mission after mission? Would it really have worked, or would she, bright burning star that she was, have gone on to some other sky, leaving him alone in the dark? Kaidan began to wonder if what he had seen in Shepard was really who she was, or his own projections. He began to wonder if what he had with her was real, or just one lonely man's delusions.

And that was why, Kaidan thought as he pushed open the doors to the club, it was often better to try and not remember Shepard at all.

* * *

Shepard leaned against the wall with a sigh, then slid down the cool metal wall to sit with her arms propped up on her knees. She leaned her head back against the wall. It was cool behind her nearly-bare scalp. She closed her eyes...

And thought of Kaidan.

_What a surprise_. She smiled to herself even as she kept her eyes shut. She pictured his face, jaw lined with stubble, that scar on his lower lip that she had never thought to ask him about, regardless of how many times she had kissed it. She would be sure to ask him about it next time she saw him. She would also run her hands through his hair, hold him close so that she could feel his warmth right through whatever clothes or armor he happened to be wearing and she would kiss him like she hadn't been able to the last time she saw him.

Or maybe, she thought, she'd stand there awkwardly and let him speak first. After all, she wasn't quite sure how shocked he would be when he saw her, or what he'd say about her new 'survivor' appearance. But she fully intended to throw herself at him the moment he gave her any indication that was what he wanted.

She chuckled to herself. She really was predictable. At least she hadn't changed.

But so much had.

It had been two years, she thought. So where was he? Did he know she was alive?

The thoughts rolled around and around in her mind, mixing in with the low hum of the room.

Shepard sighed. At least she could think in here. She had breathed a sigh of relief the moment she stepped into the engine room. The mass effect core gave off a low, pulsing energy that soothed her head at once. There was something a little strange about these new implants, she thought, though she couldn't put her finger on it exactly. They seemed to hitch at strange times – when she was standing by the galaxy map, for example, and occasionally in her quarters, too.

That was why she hadn't been able to sleep. There was an electric tickling behind her right ear when she lay in bed. It didn't help that the Illusive Man could – and probably would – be recording her as she slept up there. Feeling antsy, she had put on some clothes and come to wander the ship.

Hell of a thing, she thought, that she should come back from the dead just to get insomnia upon waking.

When she'd found the engine room, she realized that this was the place to stop and think. The mass effect energy felt artificial – not at all like the hum from a human biotic, but the effect was calming all the same. It was like listening to an ancient-style electric fan rather than the lapping of water. The latter was more comforting, but the former blocked noise. And what was it Miranda had said? This room of the ship did not have any monitoring devices. Bugs could not survive the high-energy of the drive core. Of course, there were windows right up there looking in from the crew quarters, and presumably there were cameras up there. But right here, just inside of the doorway where the windows could not see and the engine pulse was strong, she realized she had found a blind spot.

Shepard's lips curved into a smile. It was a small thing, but it suddenly meant a great deal to her. The Illusive Man was manipulating her, but she couldn't do much about it right now, on a ship surrounded by his hand-picked crew. So if she could sit here without feeling like she was being watched, so much the better.

She breathed out a sigh of relief and allowed herself to think of Kaidan some more. She hoped he was alright. She had thought that over and over again since she had woken up and she wanted nothing more than to see it for herself. If she was grateful to Cerberus for anything – and she hadn't completely made up her mind that she was – it was for the chance to see him again.

Now all she had to do was find him.

When she got to the Citadel, she thought, the first thing she was going to do was find Anderson and ask him what had happened to Kaidan. Well, no, check that, first she would respond to him in person about that email he'd sent. She'd assure him she was not working _for_ Cerberus – only _with_ them and only temporarily.

And then, somehow, she'd work in a question about Kaidan. She couldn't afford to let Anderson know about their relationship. Anderson had not been there as she and Kaidan had come together as friends and then as...more. Even if the crew of the old Normandy had known – and she sometimes suspected they had – Anderson, she was pretty sure, did not. She didn't want to get Kaidan in trouble.

Maybe, she thought, the idea making her smile more, Kaidan was at the Citadel. That would be fortuitous. It might take a little bit of persuasion, but surely she would be able to convince the Alliance to re-instate her and send her after the missing colonies. Perhaps she could even convince them to allow Kaidan to work with her again – and act of good faith, as it were. She'd saved their butts, after all. Clearly they owed her. And it would be wonderful to have Kaidan at her back again.

And as for convincing Kaidan to join her, well, as long as he hadn't found someone new, that shouldn't be a problem. In fact, the biggest problem they would have would be those pesky regulations. Though after what she'd been through, she was planning to toss the regs out the window altogether. Being dead for two years certainly put things like fraternization into perspective.

After all, Shepard figured she had earned the right to a little fraternization.


	12. Drinks and Dancing

_Chapter 12_

_(a not-so normal evening in the Wards)_

_

* * *

_

Kaidan pushed open the doors of the club and walked inside. As he had expected, it was a place to give an L2 a headache. Flashing lights, low bass thrumming, people everywhere, talking as loudly as they had to to be heard above the music. Kaidan felt said music more than he heard it. It seemed to be pounding its way into his head the way a hammer pounds a nail. For a moment, he considered leaving, but he figured that would be kind of rude since Dean had invited him.

As if thinking about the guy had caused him to appear, Kaidan spotted Dean through the crowd. The tech turned and lifted his chin a little. Kaidan returned the gesture and joined him.

"Awesome place, huh?" Dean shouted over the music.

"A little loud," Kaidan replied.

"What?" Dean shouted.

"Nothing."

"Hey!" Dead turned to a small crowd behind him and pointed at Kaidan. "This is Alenko, guys." He then turned to Kaidan and pointed to each of the people in turn. "Hinds and Korovnik, and that's Shaw. The asari is Shaw's girlfriend, Alora. There's a couple more girls coming."

"Hi," Kaidan said, only half-hearing the names over the pounding bass. Hinds and Korovnik went right back to watching a vid on the screen behind the bar. Shaw nodded, then went back to staring down his girlfriend's cleavage. The asari just watched the dancers.

"What are you having?" Dean asked Kaidan.

"Ah..." Kaidan tried to think of a drink. Beer reminded him of Ashley Williams' death and mixed drinks reminded him of the time he'd gone out to Flux with Shepard. Nothing else came to mind.

_Pathetic_, he thought. He couldn't even order a drink without dragging up bad memories.

"Here," Dean said, mercifully handing him a drink so he wouldn't have to decide. "Try one of these." Kaidan took a sip. It was awful – like pure sugar in a glass. But he nodded and said, "Interesting."

"What?"

"Nothing."

"So where you from?" the asari shouted. Kaidan didn't answer. She had to tap him on the shoulder and shout at him again for him to realize he was talking to her.

"Ah...Earth originally," he said.

"You're all from Earth _originally_," she giggled. Kaidan realized she was pretty drunk. Her biotic frequency was faint, but completely erratic with the effect of the alcohol. It was as annoying as her laughter.

"Well, yeah," he said, not sure what to say to that.

The music changed, going from a fast thudding bass to an even faster thudding bass. Kaidan felt his head beginning to hurt even more. Maybe this wasn't such a good idea, he thought.

"Oh, hey," Dean said loudly. "There they are."

He set down his drink and waved into the crowd. Kaidan followed his gaze, then saw two women approaching. One of them caught Dean's eye, grinned, and waved back. She was a short, curvy brunette with curly hair and a pretty face. The other was a little shorter and thinner, with dark hair that looked almost black. She had a rather elfin look to her. The two women crossed quickly to the bar, the brunette dragging her friend behind her.

"Dean!" the curvy brunette said, smiling up at the guy. She tossed her curly hair and ordered a drink. Dean just grinned at her in a completely idiotic way. Kaidan envied him a little. As much as he didn't want to ever look that goofy in a crowd, Dean had a girl – and she clearly liked him.

"Oh, hey," Dean said loudly so that the women could hear. "This is Katie," the curly-girl waved, "and Lisa." the elvin-looking girl nodded. "Katie and Lisa work down in Dr. Michelle's clinic on the Wards. Well, clinic is sort of the wrong word – it's getting almost as big as a hospital these days."

Kaidan nodded in reply. He remembered Dr. Michel and her clinic. Like so many things, the memory was completely tied up in his past with Shepard.

"Nice," Kaidan said. He couldn't think of anything else to say. Thankfully, Dean added, "Alenko here is a medic. Not quite the same thing..."

"With the Alliance?" the elvin girl asked. Lisa, Kaidan reminded himself. She had a very low, husky voice and enormous eyes. When she spoke, she didn't talk very loudly, but she pitched it in such a way that he heard it all the same.

"Yeah," he replied. She was looking up at him in a very curious way, almost as if she was...interested? Now there was a strange thought.

"Alenko's a Marine," Dean added. "Just got back to the Citadel."

"You're with the fleet?" Lisa asked.

"Special assignment," Kaidan replied.

"My cousin is with the fleet," Katie said, tossing her curly hair. "Maybe you know him?" She mentioned a name Kaidan had never heard of. He shrugged and shook his head.

"Oh, shit, look man," one of the other guys – Hinds, Kaidan remembered – said as he elbowed Dean. "Another Shepard sighting." He pointed at the vid screen above the bar.

Kaidan stiffened instantly. The pounding of the room seemed further away all of a sudden as he listened to the man continue.

"Looks like this one was at the Omega fueling station."

"Don't tell me you believe that crap," Dean added. "It's like that old-time singer – Elmo, or something."

"Elvis," Kaidan corrected absently. No one seemed to hear him.

"Whoa, shit, look," Hinds pointed at the video screen. "They have footage this time."

Curious, Kaidan looked. He knew he shouldn't, but he couldn't help it.

She didn't look at all like Shepard, he thought. She had buzz cut, for a start, which did not at all look like Shepard's hair. He supposed it was better than the wigs that the fake 'Shepards' sometimes wore. Through the security cam, the woman's face was too grainy to see clearly and her officer's uniform – some style he didn't recognize – was a little too loose to show anything other than the fact that she was tall and slim. Hair aside, he might have been in the ballpark for a Shepard look-alike, but really, it could have been anyone in that vid. Still, Kaidan thought, as he watched a little longer, the woman did move like Shepard – that same mix of athleticism and swagger that made her appear more Marine than lady, no matter what she was wearing. That was new. In most vids, they woman they had playing Shepard didn't walk like a soldier at all.

"So what are they saying this time?" Korovnik asked.

"Cerberus I bet," Hinds replied. "Yeah, see," he waved at the vid as a scroll marquee ran the name and the symbol of the terrorist organization across the bottom of the screen. "Joined that Cerberus group and is working with them, now."

"That's ridiculous," Lisa said, her low voice catching Kaidan completely off guard. "The woman saved the Council, which is a bunch of aliens. Cerberus is pro-human. She wouldn't work with them."

Kaidan blinked at the woman, feeling suddenly grateful that she would say what he could not. He avoided talking about Shepard at all, lest he say something carelessly inappropriate.

"Well then what do you call that?" Hinds said pointing at the screen. Kaidan turned to see what appeared to be a battle. A woman with a shaved head was crouched behind a crate in what looked like some sort of science lab. He didn't recognize the place. He was starting to ignore the vid once more when the woman jumped out from behind cover and took down a mech with one shot to the head.

Kaidan's eyebrows raised. That was... Well, that was by far the most accurate portrayal of Shepard he'd ever seen. That woman moved exactly like Shepard had. Her face looked similar, as well. In fact, he would almost have though the vid was some footage of Shepard herself, except that this woman was bald as a cultist and was wearing a contemporary style of armor that had only come out last year.

"See?" Hinds said, triumphantly, as the vid switched to a shot of an asari talking with a turian. The two seemed to be discussing Shepard's career – once again. Kaidan did his best to tune it all out, but it was hard.

"That was a vid that a mole in Cerberus leaked to the press," Hinds pronounced. "She's working with them, now."

"Man, you read too many conspiracy theory novels," Korovnik told him.

"Enough with the Shepard stuff," Dean said, looking at Kaidan nervously. Kaidan guessed that Dean had suddenly remembered who Kaidan's commanding officer had been. Kaidan pasted on his best fake smile. He didn't want anyone worrying about him – especially not tonight, when he was supposed to be acting...normal.

The curly haired girl smiled up at him. "If you're done with your drink, Dean, you wanna come dance with me?" She asked the question lightly, but her face looked as hopeful as a puppy. Kaidan found himself chuckling at the sight of Dean blinking in delighted, but baffled surprise.

"Ah, I don't...dance..." Dean began.

The brunette frowned. "Oh, okay."

"Go dance," Kaidan said, taking Dean's drink out of the man's hand.

"What?" Dean asked.

"Dance," Kaidan told him. "There's not enough time in life to worry about if you look stupid. Just go dance with the woman."

Kaidan gave Dean a little shove. Katie took it from there. She pulled Dean onto the dance floor, where the two of them fell into some very awkward movements that looked...somewhat like dancing. Kaidan smiled at them in spite of himself.

"That was nice of you."

Kaidan looked down in surprise. The dark-haired woman was looking up at him with a slight smile.

"Oh," he shrugged. "Didn't want the guy to make the same mistake..." He stopped himself. He didn't need to be telling complete strangers his sad history.

She looked at him for a second and said, "You too, huh?"

"What?" he asked her.

"Okay, Dean, check this out..." Hinds turned around, then saw that Dean wasn't there. "Where'd he go?" he asked Kaidan.

"Dancing," Kaidan nodded to the floor.

"Oh," Hinds said. "Okay, see, look man, check this out." He gestured to the vid screen. Kaidan wanted to ignore him, but the guy seemed intent upon talking about his Shepard theories with someone. Kaidan wondered if he should try and endure it for few minutes or if he could just try and pretend he hadn't heard.

"There," Hinds said, pointing, "Okay, now _that_ is what I'm talking about."

Kaidan looked. He knew he wasn't going to like it, but he looked. What he saw was a vid of Ashley Williams, of all things. She was walking alongside Shepard somewhere in the Wards. Kaidan vaguely remembered the time they had been on the Citadel all those years ago, running errands for the Council. In the vid, Ashley ducked close to Shepard to whisper something in the commander's ear. Shepard smiled slightly, but only slightly. Kaidan knew that smile. She would have been laughing on the inside. Ashley, on the other hand, broke into a wide grin that made her face light up. The vid froze on the scene, which suddenly, Kaidan realized, made it look like something else was going on entirely.

"See," Hind said, triumphantly waving to everyone nearby. "_That_ is what I always said. Shepard was into the ladies."

"You wish, man," Korovnik shook his head.

"Come on, man, Shepard liked..." Hinds finished with a completely vulgar turn of phrase that set Kaidan's blood boiling.

"That there," Hinds said, pointing at the screen where a still picture of Ashley now was shown behind the asari reporter's head, "Was one of the women on Shepard's crew. One of many, I might add."

"Doesn't mean Shepard wasn't doing her, man," Korovnik said.

"She was totally her girl-toy," Hinds told him.

"She was not," Kaidan said, the words spilling from his mouth in exasperation before he could think better of them.

Both men turned to stare at him.

"How do you know?" Hinds asked just as Korovnik said, "You a Shepard buff, too?"

Kaidan was caught between answering either or both of the questions at once – or just leaving. That still seemed like a good idea, too.

"I was on Shepard's crew," he said at last. "She was my CO."

"Lucky you," Korovnik said, clearly impressed.

"So then you know that she was into women, right?" Hinds pressed. "I heard there was this hot asari on her ship – your ship..."

Kaidan stared at the two men helplessly. On the one hand, he really wanted to set the record straight. But even suggesting that he knew that Shepard was into men might lead to questions about _how_ he knew that. His quandary was solved, in a manner of speaking, however, by someone else.

"Shepard was into dudes." The third guy, Shaw, looked up from his girlfriend's cleavage and spoke in a flat, bored tone. "So was the other chick."

"How do you know?" Hinds asked him.

"Had a buddy who knew her from Basic."

Kaidan immediately stiffened. From _Basic_?

Shaw looked at the picture of Shepard on the vid and gave a nasty smile before he went on. "Back then she wasn't at all like the ice princess they make her out to be. My friend said she was completely crazy, I mean, like total headcase, but she was a total tomcat in the..."

Suddenly, Shaw went flying onto the floor. His asari girlfriend screamed and there was the sound of breaking glass as someone dropped their drink. Hinds and Korovnik turned to stare at Kaidan, who was now fully alight with biotic fire.

"Shit!" Shaw hissed, scrambling back.

"Kaidan, buddy!" Dean cried, running from the dance floor to jump in front of the sentinel. He raised his hands up, but didn't date touch Kaidan with all the energy flaring off of him.

"Get up," Kaidan said, his voice just barely louder than the music. Other than the thudding bass, it had become curiously quiet in the room.

"Jesus, man," Shaw said. "What do you care?"

"Commander Shepard was a hero," Kaidan said, his voice low but intense. He turned and speared Hinds and Korovnik with his gaze. "Ashley Williams was a hero. They saved the galaxy, they saved all you jackasses, and you will _not_" he flared suddenly, "talk about them that way."

Dean licked his lips and glanced nervously over his shoulder at Shaw. "Apologize, man," he said.

"No way," the guy replied. "He's crazy!"

"He's a fucking biotic !" Dean snapped at him. "He's a Marine and you just insulted his team. Just get the hell up and apologize."

Shaw looked up at Kaidan warily. Kaidan glared back. He was so angry, so completely pissed off that he had almost hurt the guy when he'd tossed him on his ass.

And yet, even as Kaidan looked down Shaw, the fight went out of him. There was nothing to be gained now by defending Shepard's honor, or Ashley's for that matter. Both of them were gone, and when they'd died, they had apparently become pubic property for every asshole in the galaxy to speculate about.

Kaidan suddenly felt disgusted: both at the idiot still lying there on the floor before him, and at himself for having lost control in front of this crowd. Here he was, a ranking Alliance Marine, and he'd nearly started a fight in a bar over a woman who was two years dead.

Only she had been _his_ woman. Not that anyone cared or knew.

Kaidan then caught the eye of the dark-haired doctor, Lisa. She was gazing at him with an expression of utter surprise.

Well, so much for a normal evening with friends, he thought, ruefully.

"Sorry Dean," he muttered.

"Hey, man, I..."

But Kaidan didn't bother to stick around and hear the rest. With biotic barriers dimmed, he turned and walked out of the bar.


	13. Flashback: Technically

_Chapter 13_

_(flashback: two-day hotel "shore leave" after the battle of the Citadel)_

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* * *

_

**Note:** I must admit sometimes I write this stuff and then almost hesitate to post it. 'Cause 1) it's kind of smutty and 2) even though this is Kaidan and Kyrie Shepard's story, it just feels weird to be putting their "personal" lives out in the open like that. (When I write, I often feel more like I'm discovering the character's past than making it up, so then I get to stuff like this and I feel like I'm giving out their secrets. Does that even remotely make sense?)

But at the same time, this chapter was intended to go here, so, well, here it is. If you didn't read Valkyrie and Chosen, it might make sense to do so first, because this references chapters there. Aaand, if you don't like smut, skip it.

_Oookay. Enough apologizing. Just start the smut already, sage..._

* * *

"Incredible," Kaidan whispered. He let his head fall back against the headboard, then allowed it to loll to one side. Shepard grinned up at him from where her head lay against his leg.

"Good," she said.

"You...good...too?" he asked, the words coming to him slowly.

"Oh yes," she said, sitting up. Naked as she was in the center of the tangled sheets, she reminded him of a classic painting, though he couldn't think of which one, exactly. His mind was still feeling a little fuzzy yet.

"And I didn't hurt you before...with the biotics?" he asked.

"No," she said. "Quite the opposite, actually. Though I don't imagine hostiles get quite the same treatment from you that I did." Her eyes narrowed. "They'd better not, or I'll never let you out on a ground side mission again."

"Yeah, well," he waved a hand at his legs. "I'm glad you've never given anyone the same treatment that I just got from you right now."

Shepard frowned slightly and turned away. "Yeah."

"It's pretty amazing," Kaidan went on. "I mean for being so new at all this..." He broke off, the realization settling into place. "That's not new to you, is it?"

Shepard's slight frown became anything but slight. "You really going there, Kaidan?"

"I thought you were a virgin," he said, his eyes widening.

"Technically, I was," she said, raising an eyebrow.

"Yeah, but..." He made a face as he looked down at his naked lap. "That wasn't part of the 'technically,' was it?"

"Kaidan," she said, "I have not asked you about your past history. In fact, I rather hesitated to tell you about mine. Do you really want to have this conversation?"

"You said you were a little wild back in basic," Kaidan said, now remembering what she'd told him.

"And I was," she said, folding her arms over her bare chest.

"And...that..." he couldn't finish.

She closed her eyes and let out an annoyed breath that fanned her hair from eyes. "Kaidan..."

"How many?"

"I was a lonely kid back then," she told him.

"How many?"

"How many?" she scowled. "I haven't asked _you_ how many. Don't you sit there acting so self-righteous..."

"Three," he replied. She blinked.

"Seriously?" she asked doubtfully.

"Seriously," he told her. "There was a girl I met when I was in basic – it lasted two years, but was mostly long-distance. Then there was a mistake that happened on shore leave that I resolved never to repeat, and there was a girl I dated while I was in advanced tech training. That lasted about six months."

"So your last girlfriend was..." she did the math in her head, "About five years ago?"

"Six."

"That long?" She felt her mouth hanging open and closed it.

"I told you it had been a while." He folded his arms over his chest.

"Were they biotics?" she asked.

"No," he said. "But I managed. I learned how to...control things during BaaTT."

"Yeah, you can control things pretty well," she muttered, thinking back to just a short while back. "But not Rahna," she added, hoping he'd say 'no.'

"No," he shook his head. She nodded, pleased. His eyes narrowed. "So I'll ask you again: how many?"

"Kaidan," she sighed. "Alright, fine. My boyfriend from the Blitz. And before that..." She made a face. "It was less than...a dozen."

"A _dozen_?"

"Less than," she repeated. She looked up at the ceiling and nodded her chin slightly, as if counting. "Seven," she said. "I think."

"You _think_?"

"I was drunk most times. Though my biotics burned through the booze way too quickly to get much further than..." She shifted uncomfortably. "Why do you think I don't drink anymore?"

He stared at her. "You have given seven _or more_ men a blow job?"

"Just...two with the..." she began uneasily. "The rest were..." She broke off and raised her hand lamely. Kaidan's jaw dropped.

"Okay, Alenko," she said, eyes narrowing as she pointed a finger at him, "You don't get to judge me. I had just gone through two years of completely unhelpful therapy after Mindoir, I didn't get along with the foster family, and I was _messed up_. The fact that I didn't go a whole lot farther than...that...was largely due to the fact I couldn't control my biotics at all. If I got excited..." She broke off as Kaidan gave her a pained look

"It didn't take me long to realize I was getting used," she told him. "And gossiped about. It made me...well, as disgusted at myself as you look right now. I stopped partying. About a year later I met a guy and we were working things out when the Blitz happened. You know what happened then. I managed to pull myself out of a pretty deep hole – alone, too. While I regret what I did when I was down there..." She broke off and made a face, "Ah...metaphorically speaking... I came back from pretty far gone. I can't take it back, but those mistakes made me realize that once you loose respect for yourself, you've lost everything." She lifted her chin. "You going to hold that against me?"

"I..." He let out a frustrated sigh. "No, I... Hell, I liked the idea that you were just..." He trailed off.

"Just what? Someone without a messy past?"

"Mine." He said the word softly, then looked at her. His eyes were searching, and her heart twisted at the sight.

"Kaidan," she said. "I _am_ yours." She broke off and smiled suddenly, a wry, amused smile. "God, I really never thought I was the kind of woman who would ever say something like _that_. How totally...I don't even know what to call that."

"Shepard," he said, "I'm not trying to be... I don't even know what I wanted to say here."

"I understand," she told him. "Really, I do. I feel like you're...mine. And God help any woman who tries to take you from me."

"I wouldn't want to see that," Kaidan said, his lips twitching.

"Hey," she told him, "If you honestly wanted to leave me, I'm not going to make you stay. But if there was any chance at all that beating the hell out of someone would keep you beside me..."

"Then you'd be jailed for murder."

"Pretty much."

"You say the sweetest things, Shepard," Kaidan teased her.

"What can I say?" she shrugged. "I know what turns a Marine on." She tensed just shortly after he did. "I didn't...mean it like that." She scowled. "Alright, Kaidan. Honestly, is this going to bother you?"

"Honestly? I don't like it," he told her. "What bothers me isn't what you did, but that you didn't do it because you wanted to. I don't like the idea that you were being used by some jackasses. If I had been there, I swear... If I thought you had chosen someone special, then I wouldn't mind it..._quite_ as much."

"I agree," she said. "That's the part that I don't like about it either. But in the end, I did choose someone special: I chose you."

She smiled at him so openly, he had to smile back. She crawled over to him to lay her head on his chest. The contact of her skin made him relax a little. Somehow, having her touch him like this held a reassurance that her words had not been able to communicate. Kaidan wrapped his arms around her to hold her close.

"I'm glad you did," he told her.

"Me too," she agreed. "And you know, Kaidan, certain...acts aside, this is all new to me. I think I told you once before that part of me always...held back before. That's part of why I never...finished what I started, even back then." She paused a moment before she added, "And whatever I've done, the way I feel about you is completely new to me."

"Same here," he admitted.

They lay like that for a while, just staring down the bed to where their feet were tangled together in the sheets.

"So..." Shepard said at last, "You going to be okay with this?"

Kaidan thought about it. "I will be," he said after a moment, "but only on the condition that I get to have you again – right now."

"Really?" she asked sitting up to give him a sultry smile. "Why the condition, Alenko?"

"Well, I'm feeling very threatened here," he said.

Shepard snorted. He didn't sound even remotely threatened.

"So I think I'm going to have to 'claim' you a few times," he went on. "You know, just to feel manly. And to make sure that you're all mine."

Shepard laughed loudly, then covered her mouth with her hand.

"What?" he asked, raising an eyebrow. "You have a problem with that?"

"Oh, no," she said, grinning. "I'm just thinking that with those three girlfriends, I'm feeling threatened, too."

"Oh really?" he asked, reaching for her waist.

"Oh yes," she said, crawling forward to straddle him. "So I'm going to have to do a lot of 'claiming' you right back."

"You planning to use biotics on me, Shepard?" he asked, looking up at her, his eyes glittering.

"If I have to," she murmured softly.

"Really?" he asked. "Is that a promise?"

"Oh yes," she said.

"But only..." she added, as she began to slowly slide down over him,

"In the very..."

She grinned as he breathed in sharply.

"...nicest..."

Her own breath caught in her throat as she joined with him.

"...way."


	14. Set Up

_Chapter 14_

_(dates and deceptions)_

**Note:** I wonder just how "rogue" Cerberus really is. I have suspicions about lingering connections. But I'm waiting for the 'official' verdict in DLC to come. Bring it, Bioware. I wanna know!

* * *

"Alenko!"

"Shit!" Kaidan jumped back and reached for his pistol all at once. He stopped with the firearm halfway raised to Dean's startled face.

"Don't do that, man," he snapped, holstering the gun. He realized he was still flaring with a biotic barrier. He let it dim. "What the hell are you doing here?"

"Hoped to catch you when you woke up," Dean replied. "I was about to knock when the door opened."

"Okay," Kaidan said. He glanced down the empty barracks hallway. "What's up?"

"I just wanted to make sure you were okay."

"Right," Kaidan made a face. "I'm sorry if I made a mess of things with your friends. You inviting the crazy biotic and all..."

"Actually," Dean said, "they thought you were pretty cool."

Kaidan looked at him doubtfully.

"No really," Dean said, holding up his hands. "Well, Shaw didn't like you, but we all think he's an ass. He told us he wasn't going to join us for drinks anymore and we're all fine with that. But the other two guys thought you were alright. And ah..." he paused and made a face. "Actually, I'm supposed to set you up."

Kaidan's brow furrowed in confusion. "Come again?" he asked.

"Set you up," Dean replied. "Damn, see, I _told_ her I was going to be bad at this."

"Told who?"

"Katie," Dean said. "Her friend Lisa... She wants to meet you for drinks. She...liked you." Dean said the words as if he was handing Kaidan something very feminine - a purse, maybe - and he wanted to get it out of his hands as quickly as possible.

"She...wait...what?" Kaidan blinked. Surely he wasn't hearing this right. He'd biotically thrown a guy in a bar and now a doctor was wanting a _date_ with him? Clearly things had changed around the Citadel since he'd been here last.

"Yeah," Dean went on. "Katie wanted to make it a double date, since she didn't want to leave Lisa on her own, but then she has to cover a shift tonight, so I was supposed to come and tell you...er...ask you. Shit," he grumbled, shrugging his shoulders. "This made more sense when Katie was saying it."

"So this...Lisa, that's her name, right?" Kaidan asked.

"Yeah."

"Lisa wants to meet me for drinks...when?"

"Tonight," Dean replied. "Oh, hell," he said, firing up his omnitool. "Just take Katie's email address and ask her for Lisa's address and figure this out yourself. I'm not good at this crap." Kaidan's omnitool flickered as it received the data.

"I've got work," Dean went on. "But seriously, man, just...go out with Lisa so that Katie won't be mad at me for not setting up her friend. Then you and I can get a couple of beers some other time. I gotta run."

Dean waved goodbye and left Kaidan standing in the hallway of the barracks, feeling a little stunned.

A date? That was just...strange.

But then, he thought to himself, why not? If last night hadn't ended his social career on the Citadel, then he couldn't very well go downhill from there. Lisa seemed nice enough. He'd be leaving in less than a week, so it wasn't like he planned on anything terribly serious, but hey, he could try and enjoy himself a little. Her method of asking him out was a little juvenile, but he was flattered by her interest, at least. And if going out with her would help smooth things along for Dean out and his girlfriend, well...

Kaidan flipped on his omnitool, logged into the Alliance barrack's extranet network, and fired off a short message to Katie.

* * *

"This can't be right," Councilor Anderson looked up from his desk with a frown. "Commander Alenko only just arrived on the Citadel."

"His assignment was already reviewed," the messenger said. "He's needed on this next colony right away."

Anderson looked down at the file marked, "Horizon." His lips thinned into a line. On the one hand, he was tempted to keep Alenko here until Shepard arrived. If anyone would be able to read her, spot if she was brainwashed or otherwise under compulsion, clearly it would be one of her old crew.

And yet, Anderson thought, that was far too risky. Shepard had been a charismatic leader. He didn't think she ever realized the effect she had on people. She had assumed people followed her because of her ability to get the job done, but Anderson knew it was something else as well, that subtle fire of driven passion that called people to her, like moths to flame.

And if she was working for Cerberus – truly working for them – then he simply couldn't chance it that his best Alliance operative might get pulled into that organization. The Council and the Alliance were doing precious little for those disappearing human colonies. Alenko's project had been the only thing Anderson could get authorized to help. He needed Alenko where he was.

Anderson also knew that former crew mates often had strange reactions to one another if separated for a long time. Sometimes they became overly connected to one another, but often the distance of time and years made them act strangely. There was simply too much possible emotional distress involved here. Until he could predict what a meeting between the two soldiers would bring, he wouldn't force one.

After all, there was no telling what Shepard might do or even be like after all this time. Anderson had respected Shepard, had thought of her more as a daughter than a protege, and yet, he knew that for all her icy exterior, she could be volitile when pushed.

Alenko, on the other hand, was much more stoic. Anderson remembered how bravely Alenko had taken Shepard's death. The man had been exhausted when he'd arrived on the Citadel. Loosing a commanding officer was never easy, and so Anderson had marveled at Alenko's admirable clarity of mind and his seemingly endless work ethic. In fact, the only time that Alenko had faltered was when he disappeared during Shepard's funeral. But considering that Anderson had not warned Alenko that he would be expected to give a speech, the councilor could hardly blame the man for that. They'd had a terse apology of sorts afterwards and never spoken about it again.

No, Anderson thought, Alenko was better off where he was. And Shepard was too unknown a quantity to be exposing her to anyone other than the Council right now. Until he knew what was going on with her and Cerberus, he needed to keep her in the dark. Sadly, he suspected he'd have to keep her in the dark after that as well. It wasn't a prospect he liked, but then, she'd chosen her loyalties when she chose Cerberus.

Anderson settled his mind on the subject.

"Very well," he said, pressing his thumb to the datapad to approve it. "At least give the commander some leave when he's finished with Horizon."

The messenger nodded and turned to go.

Anderson sighed and went back to his other reports, so he didn't see as the messenger smiled to himself as he slipped out of the door, nor did he see the messenger turn away from the path leading to the Alliance headquarters and continue on to a private suite of offices further along the Presidum. And no one saw the messenger step into a private office and lay the datapad down on a desk before a man in an admiral's uniform.

"He approved it," the messenger said.

"Good," the other man replied. "Thank you, private."

"Sir." The messenger nodded and left. The man in the admiral's uniform smiled to himself as he uploaded the data file into the computer before him. This file was as good as credits in the bank.

He sent out two messages: one to Staff Commander Kaidan Alenko, and one to an unnamed account. The first message was titled, "RE: Assignment 756. Change of Plans."

The second message simply read:

_Objective achieved. Commander Alenko leaves the Citadel tomorrow at noon._


	15. Citadel Doctor

_Chapter 15_

_(Citadel doctor)_

_

* * *

_

**Note**: I thought long and hard about the Citadel doctor. I'm sure she's a very nice person in some ways (Kaidan went out with her, right? She can't be a total mutant.), but I just couldn't help but give her traits that...well, belong to someone _I don't like_ (I'm so evil). So, here she is...

* * *

"Hey," Lisa said.

Kaidan looked up, surprised that she had sneaked up on him. He had been so distracted that he hadn't even noticed the rather noisy approach of a woman in heels.

"Hey," he replied.

She stood there, expectantly. For a moment, he wasn't sure what she was waiting for, but then his manners kicked in. _Of course..._

Kaidan stood and went to pull the chair back for her. She sat down demurely, her little heels side by side as she sat with her knees pressed together. She made a small movement as Kaidan helped push her chair into place, then smiled up at him. He smiled back and returned to his own chair.

_That was strange_, he thought. His mother had taught him such niceties as a pre-teen, and certainly he'd practiced those manners since, just never...

On Shepard.

_Great_, he thought, hiding a frown. Here he was, less than a minute into his first date in years, and already he was thinking about _her_ again.

Of course, Kaidan had never actually been on a real date with Shepard. She probably wouldn't have waited for him to pull back her chair anyway. Hell, she probably never had a guy hold open a door for her in her life, the way she always went striding out in front of any people she happened to walk with. Part of him wondered if he'd had the chance, if he would have done such silly, old-fashioned things like opening doors for her. She probably would have fought that kind of treatment tooth and nail. And he would have enjoyed fighting her right back. The idea of the battle of wills that might have followed such gestures was intriguing. It was also bittersweet. He wouldn't ever have the opportunity to know how such a struggle might have ended.

Lisa cleared her throat and Kaidan looked up at her. She smiled at him expectantly, clearly waiting for him to say something. He attempted another smile and tried to put his thoughts of Shepard aside.

"You look nice," he said, going for a vague and expected compliment. She smiled a little wider.

"Thanks," she replied. "So do you."

Kaidan doubted that. He was wearing his simple BDUs and he hadn't been sleeping very well lately. But he nodded his head in acknowledgment of the intention all the same. Lisa fell silent. Kaidan fought the urge to grit his teeth. This was more awkward than he had expected. This woman seemed nice enough, but if this was going to be an effort to talk to her all night long...

Mercifully, an elcor waiter appeared just then, handing them datapads with the drinks menu. Kaidan tried not to blink at the high prices. He could afford it, he told himself. He hadn't bought anything for himself in...well, years, really. Still, expensive dates were not a custom for him.

Lisa looked down the menu, then ordered something that Kaidan noticed was not the priciest thing on there, but was pretty close. He ordered a beer for himself. The waiter shuffled off. Kaidan hoped the guy – or maybe girl, it was hard to tell with the elcor – would not take long. Without a drink in hand, he felt strangely naked. He had no idea what to say. And Lisa was just sitting there, looking at him expectantly again.

"So, you're a doctor," he said. _Nice_, he thought. _Always with the insightful comment, Alenko._

"Yeah," she replied.

"How long have you been practicing?" he asked.

"Only eighteen months," she replied. "Just finished up my degree last year."

"Oh," he said. "So before that you were at University?"

"No, high school," she said. "I did an accelerated program."

"High school?" Kaidan blinked. "Just how old are you, exactly?" He kicked himself for the insensitive question the moment it left his lips.

"I'm twenty-three," she replied.

_Twenty-three?_ Kaidan fought the urge to gape at her. She was twelve years younger than he was. He suddenly felt like an old man. Perhaps a dirty old man. She looked much older than that, but still...

"You must have done well in school to have finished so young," he said, fighting for something that would not come across as offensive – or shocked.

She shrugged. "I guess so."

There was an awkward pause.

"So, you're doing your residency here?" Kaidan asked.

"Yeah," she made a slight face.

"You don't like the Citadel?" he asked.

"It's a lot of aliens," she replied. "Hard to keep up on all the different races and their reactions to medicine. I'd rather just go back and work on Earth. More stable, better pay."

"Oh," he said. As someone who traveled all over the galaxy for a living and rubbed elbows with aliens all the time, Kaidan found the idea of working at a wealthy Earth clinic incredibly – dull.

"So what about you?" she asked him.

"I'm between assignments," he said. "I actually...ah..." he hesisated for a moment. "I'm leaving tomorrow."

"Oh," she said, her voice neutral. "Really?"

"Yeah," he said. "Change of plans, apparently. But I did want to take you up on the offer for a drink."

"Oh," she said, frowning. "Okay."

There was an awkward silence.

"Not that..." Kaidan began again, realizing how she might have misread his words, "I intended...anything, exactly." He tried to collect his thoughts and not sound like a complete idiot or a complete lecher. "I appreciated the invitation. I mean, I can't stay out late,"

Okay, he thought, that sounded pretty silly, but it ought to make it clear he wasn't expecting anything from her...

"...because I have to get ready to go in the morning, but I thought drinks sounded good."

He attempted a smile meant to convey what he was clearly not saying very well. It seemed to work, because she smiled weakly back.

"Okay," she said. "I...really wasn't expecting... I just," she shrugged. "Katie wants me to get out more. And you seemed...nice."

_Nice._ Kaidan winced internally. Not that nice was _bad_, but considering that he could kill a person with a brain impluse and a flick of the wrist, he'd never quite seen the word as applying to him, exactly.

"So, um," she went on, looking up at him with her huge green eyes, "Where are you going? In the morning, I mean."

"It's classified," he said. He gave her a weak smile. "Just about everything I do is classified."

"That's...interesting," she said. Her tone of voice implied that she didn't really find it interesting but felt she ought to.

Kaidan nodded. He didn't know what else to do. This was clearly going to be the longest night of his life.

He looked over her shoulder to see a band of asari and one turian setting up their instruments on the bar's small stage. He nodded to them. Lisa saw his gesture and turned to look over her shoulder.

"Have you heard this band?" he asked her, grateful to find something to talk about. "I heard them once out in the traverse over extranet radio. It's a kind of...I guess it's sort of a take on Earth-blues and asari justicaar chants. With a little turian electronica mixed in. It's different, but I like it."

She nodded at the band, then turned back to face him. "I see."

"That's why I suggested this place," he added, feeling like he should explain for some reason. "I heard they were playing here and I thought you might like the live music."

As he spoke, the band began to tune their various instruments. Kaidan watched in interest. He had recognized some of the instruments over the radio: electric guitar, electric bass, drum set, but several sounds he had not been able to place. Now that he saw the instruments in person, he realized why. He wasn't even quite sure how someone played some of those things.

"You into this kind of music?" Lisa asked.

Kaidan shrugged. "Yeah. I mean, I like a lot of different styles. I can't play at all," he added sheepishly, "and I can't carry a tune in a bucket. But I admire people who can."

He suddenly remembered Shepard's voice – a clear, pure siren's song that had wrapped itself right around some inner part of him. He had only heard her sing a few times, but when she had...

Kaidan shoved the memory aside and forced himself back to the present.

"Can't carry a tune in a bucket?" Lisa was saying. "I've never heard that one before."

"Really?"

"That's...funny," she said. And she smiled. Kaidan smiled back. Alright, he thought, watching her eyes light up, maybe this evening wouldn't be so difficult after all.

"So, what kind of music do you like?" he asked.

She considered that. "I don't really like music," she replied.

Okaaay, and maybe it _would_ be a difficult evening. Kaidan forced himself not to let his jaw drop open.

"You don't... How do you... not like music?" he asked, trying to keep his voice neutral.

She shrugged. "I like silence," she replied. "There's too much noise in the Wards as it is."

"Yeah," he said as the band began to introduce themselves, "but noise isn't the same thing as music."

"Isn't it?" she asked. The band began their first song and she looked back over her shoulder and shrugged. "I mean, I know people like it and all, but...just doesn't do much for me."

Kaidan opened his mouth, then closed it. Well, he thought, that was...different. He supposed it was unfair to judge someone for not liking music. Personal tastes and all that. But still...not to like jazz – that showed someone lacked style; not to like classic rock – that showed someone lacked sexuality; not to like blues – that showed someone lacked soul; but not to like music...at all? It was like saying you weren't...human.

Kaidan didn't speak as the elcor waiter returned and carefully set their drinks on the table. Lisa took a sip of her vibrantly orange drink, then set it down and said, "So, you were here for the Battle of the Citadel?"

Kaidan looked up at her. He hadn't even taken a sip of his beer and already they were to a conversation he dreaded.

"Yeah," he replied. He supposed there was no getting out of this one.

"Did you see the...worst of it?" she asked.

Kaidan remembered back: the skeletal form that had been Saren, now infused somehow with the presence of Sovereign. They had been trapped in a tiny space, his and Shepard's biotics snapping out as quickly as they could manage it, Garrus shooting round after round from his assault rifle into the creature's body. Even so, it had taken fifteen minutes of brutal fighting to kill the thing. He was amazed they had survived at all.

"I was with the team that took down Saren," he said at last.

"And you saw the Reaper?" she asked.

Kaidan blinked at her. "You know about the Reaper?" he asked, surprised. So few people knew what had really happened, much less believed it. It seemed that every time he returned to the Citadel, it had become even more of a legend than before.

"One of it's...tentacles, I guess, smashed into my apartment complex," she explained. "I was up late studying for my finals and I had gone out to get some groceries. I came back to find half of my block gone."

"My God," he muttered.

"Yeah," she said. She sighed, then looked up at him with her wide, elvin eyes. "My fiancée was on the SSV Shanxi."

"You..." Kaidan broke off, sudden sympathy and understanding flooding him. "I'm sorry," he said.

"Yeah," she nodded. "So I know... I know what it was, even if everyone else wants to pretend differently." She made a face, then met his eye. "And I know what you went through when you lost...her."

Kaidan suddenly found his heart pounding in his chest. Lost her? Had he been so obvious the other night? Had all his years of caution about his relationship with Shepard been undone by his stupid reaction to a couple of news vids and the dumbass comments of a couple of drunks?

"You...do?" he asked, weakly.

"Yeah," she nodded. "I mean, it must have been really hard to have lost her, and then to have to continue to fight, knowing that killing the Reaper wouldn't bring her back."

Wait. What?

"And to follow the woman who allowed her to die," Lisa shook her head. "I heard about Virmire. I mean, I know Shepard saved the day, but I don't think I could follow someone that cold. I don't know how you Marines do it."

"You..." Kaidan sputtered. "You think...?"

"Ashley was her name, right? I remember seeing her on the vids. She was pretty."

"She was," Kaidan said absently. So _that_ was what she thought? She thought that he had been in love with _Ashley_? He thought back to the day before, trying to see how that misunderstanding might have happened. He found himself torn between wanting to deny it and the realization that it served as a perfect cover for the truth. After all, the truth was far more damning.

"You know," he said at last, "I really don't want to talk about it."

"I can see that," Lisa said, her eyes wide with sympathy. "I didn't want to talk about Brian at all for the longest time. Some days, I still don't. Katie worries about me..."

She watched Kaidan for a moment longer, then added, "But I know what you're going through."

_I doubt that,_ Kaidan thought. But it was kind of her to be sympathetic all the same. This was certainly a pleasant change from trying to pretend that everything was fine.

"Should we order dinner?" she asked, hopefully.

Kaidan thought about it. This woman didn't like music, she wanted to move back to Earth, and she was over ten years younger than he. She thought he was getting over Ashley, she was clearly trying to get over her fiancee, and he was leaving first thing in the morning. Obviously, Kaidan thought, this wasn't going anywhere.

But then again, he thought, maybe it didn't need to go anywhere. Maybe he could just talk to this girl and the two of them could have, well, if not a pleasant evening, at least an evening that wasn't the same old lonely whatever. He certainly didn't have anything better to do and he was hungry. And it seemed like they had gotten past the most awkward part of the date. If nothing else, this would be good practice at acting normal. God knew he needed as much practice at _that_ as possible.

"Sure," Kaidan said with a shrug, turning to look for their waiter. "Let's have dinner."


	16. Forgiven

_Chapter 16_

_(the ship and the docks)_

_

* * *

_

**Random note:** To those who asked about the music thing in the last chapter – I have honest to God had two different people tell me that before. No joke. Both times, my reaction was like Kaidan's. That's why I just couldn't resist putting it in there.

_Okay. Enough explication, back to the Shenko..._

_

* * *

_

"What do you mean you can't find her?" Joker snapped. "She couldn't have left the damn ship."

"My monitoring devices have not been able to locate Commander Shepard for over fourteen hours." EDI replied. "I last registered her walking into engineering. She may still be there."

"Engineering?" Joker asked. "For over fourteen hours? That's insane," he flipped on the comm link and spoke into it. "Ken? Gabby? You guys down there?" There was no reply. Joker gritted his teeth. "Come on, people. Anyone down there seen Shepard?"

"Joker?" A groggy voice came over the link. Joker relaxed instantly.

"Where the hell have you been?" he said, his voice coming out more angry than he meant it to.

"I have located the commander," EDI told Joker.

"No shit," he replied. "So did I. What are you doing, Shepard?"

"I was..." she trailed off and he didn't catch the rest.

"Commander, it's almost midnight," Joker told her. "You need to sleep."

"Funny you should say that," she said, enigmatically. "I'm on my way up."

Joker shook his head and shut off the comm link.

"You called the commander 'Shepard'," EDI intoned in her too-neutral voice.

"Did I?" Joker asked. "Didn't notice." He did his best to ignore the blue sphere hovering by his shoulder. The presence of EDI was purely mechanical, he told himself. She wasn't watching – _it_ wasn't watching. The artificial intelligence was _not_ staring at him just now, trying to analyze him. Clearly all these monitoring devices were making him paranoid. Well, more than usual.

"Yes," the artificial intelligence said after a moment. "Twice, in fact."

"Well, when us organics get worried, we tend to drop protocol a little," Joker shrugged. "Why the hell didn't you tell me she had been off the grid for that long? I would have thought the way you like to go spying on people, you'd get bent out of shape the moment one of us went missing."

"I do not _like_ to spy, Mr. Moreau," the AI replied, a slight reprimand in her words. "I have been tasked with operating the monitoring devices. When the Illusive Man requests updates, I send them to him. That is all."

"How often is he asking for updates?"

Joker turned to see Shepard standing in the doorway to the bridge. She looked terrible. Her face was red on one side, her eyes overly bright and watery.

"I have a block that prevents me from telling you about that," EDI replied.

"Naturally," Shepard muttered, just as Joker said, "Of course you do." The two humans exchanged a glance, then simultaneously broke into wry smiles. Joker felt suddenly awkward and his smile faded.

"So where the hell were you?" Joker said, coughing a little as he spoke.

"Engine room," Shepard told him.

"All this time?" Joker asked. "How come we didn't see you?"

"Monitoring devices overload after prolonged exposure to the drive core," EDI informed them. "Rather than require continual replacement of the systems, a window from the crew rooms above was installed."

"Plus the view of the drive core is just so soothing after lights out," Joker added sarcastically.

"Don't mention that blind spot to the Illusive Man, EDI," Shepard said. "That's an order."

"The Illusive Man is already aware of it," EDI replied. "His surveillance methods have accounted for that location."

"What kind of methods?" Shepard asked, frowning.

"I have a block..."

"Never mind." Shepard said, squeezing her eyes shut. "I get it. As long as we're here, we're under constant watch."

"The Illusive Man does not actively watch all footage of the ship," EDI told her. "He merely records it in the event that he should need to review it."

"That doesn't make me feel much better about it," she muttered.

"Me either," Joker agreed.

"The Illusive Man deemed it necessary..."

"You know what EDI?" Joker said, turning to the blue sphere, "Just shut the hell up, okay?"

"Logging you out," the voice replied. Perhaps it was Joker's imagination, but she sounded almost...hurt. The sphere disappeared. Joker looked up to find Shepard gazing at him with her eyebrows raised.

"What?" he snapped.

"Was that really necessary?" she asked him.

"It's an AI," Joker told her.

"Which means she's sentient," Shepard replied. "I'd rather have her on our side as much as possible."

"You want to work with an AI?" Joker gaped at her.

"We're already working with her," Shepard said. "Might as well be on good terms. Besides, Joker, she's still listening."

"I know," Joker said, scowling. "It's always listening."

Shepard nodded and wearily scrubbed a hand over her face.

"You look like hell, commander," Joker said without thinking. "I mean," he caught himself. "I..."

"It's okay," she said. "I feel like hell." She rubbed her hand absently over her fuzzy head.

"What were you doing down there in engineering?" Joker asked her.

"Well, I found that blind spot," she replied. "Sat down just for a moment to think things through without feeling like I was being watched and I guess I fell asleep."

"On the floor?"

"Yep. Take it from me, Joker. View of the drive-core aside, I'm sure the crew deck is better lodgings."

"You just slept the whole day away?"

"Yeah," she nodded. "And I'm still exhausted. Well," she shrugged. "It figures. I hadn't slept since they...well, woke me up. I was going on three days without rest there."

Joker frowned. "For all that Cerberus brought you back, they're driving you pretty hard."

"I'm driving myself pretty hard, too," she told him. "But yeah, they are." She paused, then looked down at Joker and considered him closely.

"Truly Joker. No dumbass comments, now. Why did you join them?"

Joker blinked and looked away. He really didn't want to have this conversation, but he knew he couldn't avoid it forever.

"The brought you back," he said with a shrug.

She seemed to consider that. Then she crossed to the helm and sat down in the seat to his right – the same seat Alenko used to sit in on the old Normandy when he came up to visit Joker in the bridge. The comparison seemed strange, somehow.

"So," she said, turning her chair to face him and leaning forward with her elbows on her knees, "You joined Cerberus – a terrorist organization – just so that you could work with me?" She shook her head. "Come on, Joker. You were never sentimental - not about your superior officers, anyhow."

"Yeah, well you weren't just our superior officer, were you?" he asked. He grimaced and shifted uncomfortably. "Anyhow, they let me fly," he said lightly. "No one else was giving me squat."

"You were drinking all the time," she told him. He looked at her in surprise. "I've been reading up on everyone," she said. "Yeoman Chambers gave me full dossiers on everyone on the ship."

"Damn," he muttered. "I forgot how much you check up on your crew."

"Seriously, Joker," she pressed. "You joined Cerberus so you could fly and because you wanted to work with me?"

"I wanted to..." Joker made a face, then figured this was as good a time as any to say it. "They told me what they had planned for you, and it was my fault that you... I wanted to make sure you came back." His voice dropped so low Shepard almost didn't hear it. "I wanted to keep you alive this time. "

She sat back a little. "You blame yourself for my death?" she asked. When he said nothing, she shook her head. "My God, Joker. I'm sorry. I had no idea."

"Yeah, well," he shrugged.

"Joker," she said, narrowing her eyes at him. "That attack came out of nowhere. You couldn't possibly have out-maneuvered that ship."

She watched his face as he continued to stare at the monitor, tension along every muscle. She realized that trying to make him feel better about what had happened was not going to work. Joker would require a different kind of absolution, and she guessed that he would probably have to earn it to feel like he deserved it.

"Okay, you're right," she said, standing suddenly. "You were an ass."

Joker looked up at her, startled.

"You should have gotten off the ship when I gave the order," she continued, "and if you _ever_ disobey a direct order of mine again, I will personally try out every biotic trick I know on your pathetic hide. You understand me, Moreau?"

Joker straightened in his seat. "Yes, ma'am," he replied, a little stunned.

"In the meantime, keep this ship together, watch my back, stand with me against Cerberus if it comes to that, and if we both come out of this mission alive, we'll call it even."

Joker looked at her, several different emotions crossing over his face in quick succession. Shepard had to hide her surprise. She had only ever seen him sarcastic or sarcastically angry. To see all these different sides of Joker at once was pretty strange.

Finally, his expression settled on a determined look, even though his eyes were a little watery.

"Aye, aye," he said at last, nodding at her firmly.

"Good," she said, nodding back. "And get some sleep. You look awful."

"You look worse," he told her. She rolled her eyes.

"Don't push it, Joker."

"I'm just saying..."

"Dismissed, Flight Lieutenant," she told him sternly as she turned to go. "And forgiven, as well," she added, more gently. "In case you were wondering."

She then gave him a genuine smile. Joker had seen that kind of warmth from her before, but never directed at him. He realized that in her own way, the commander had just decided that she officially counted him among her friends. He also realized that he wasn't quite sure how to take that.

"Commander," he managed. She nodded and walked away. Joker watched her go, then turned back to stare blankly at the computer before him.

"Don't you say a word, EDI," he said after a long silence.

"I do not understand, Mr. Moreau," the voice replied as the blue sphere instantly popped back into existence. "What would I say?"

"Nothing," he told her. "Nothing at all." With a few taps to the computer, he shut down his console for the night.

"Keep her running for me, EDI," he said. "I think I might just get a decent night of sleep tonight. First one in a long while."

* * *

Kaidan woke the next morning feeling pretty well rested, for once. The combination of high-quality food, a couple beers, and conversation – awkward though it had been at first – had left him in a good mood. He'd walked Lisa back to her apartment, then stood there as she'd opened the lock and invited him in. She didn't really seem to be sure if she wanted him to stay, so he had...shaken her hand. That had been the best he could come up with at that awkward moment. She seemed charmed by the gesture, however, and she smiled at him as he turned to go. She suggested that maybe if he came back to the Citadel some time... And Kaidan had nodded and said that he'd like that.

There was a lot of baggage with that one, he thought. But then, he had a whole freighter's worth of baggage on his own. So when he saw that she had sent him a message asking if she could write to him while he was on assignment, he'd said sure. He'd warned her he would be off the grid for several months at a time, but he'd agreed to it. And then they had that tentative plan to meet again when next he came back. It was a small thing, he thought, but it was something.

And it was pointed at the future, and not the past, so that was even better.

Kaidan e took one glance around his room to make sure he had everything packed into his duffel bag. He nodded in satisfaction. All in all, this little break had gone better than he'd hoped. He left a message for Dean, thanking the guy and letting him know the change of plans, and then Kaidan headed up to the docking bays.

The SSV Rochester was Kaidan's berth this morning. He settled in, fired up his datapad to check on his briefing for the next mission, and looked out of the port window to see the Citadel lights twinkling below him. He actually felt a little sad to leave. He had been looking forward to drinks with Dean as well as that date with Lisa, and he was a little disappointed that he hadn't been able to check in with the Councilor Anderson again. Unfortunately, the councilor had been busy.

Still, Kaidan thought, he couldn't remember the last time he'd wanted to stay on someplace. Clearly, he was turning a corner here. And it had only taken two years to do it.

The Rochester finished preparations to leave the Citadel, and as Kaidan sat below decks, reading his datapad, the captain called in for clearance from Citadel control to leave.

* * *

The chief controller, a massive turian with a Port Hanshan accent, flicked his six massive fingers over the computer pad before him, giving the SSV Rochester the necessary clearance codes to leave.

"All clear," he announced into the comm link. "You are free to go." A crackled thanks came back in reply, and several floors below the command tower, the Alliance cruiser fired up its engines and pulled away from the dock.

"Sir?"

The turian controller looked up to see his apprentice looking at him nervously.

"There's a ship requesting to dock, sir," the asari said. "But it's flagged..." The controller stood and came to look over her shoulder at the image of a vessel that was unlike any he had seen. No, he thought, that wasn't quite true. He had seen a ship like this two years ago, but that had been an Alliance vessel, not...

"Cerberus?" he snapped, his mandibles flaring.

"Yes, sir," the asari stammered. "They're calling in."

"Patch them through," he told her. She nodded and did so.

"This is the Normandy SR-2," a voice crackled over the Citadel control comm. "Requesting permission to dock. We have a Council Specter on board."

"What's the name of this Specter?" the controller asked, suspicion lacing every word.

A new voice answered.

"This is Commander Shepard of the Human Alliance Military," the voice said. "Also a member of the Special Tactics and Reconnaissance Forces of the Citadel Council. I have business with Councilor David Anderson. Request permission to dock."

The computer's voice recognition system flared suddenly into the red. The picture of a tall, pale woman in Alliance special forces gear appeared on the screen beside the schematic of the frigate. The words "Missing in Action," flashed repeatedly over her face. The turian controller gaped at the screen, then turned to find that every single person in the room, turian, asari, human, salarian, and their one lone volus worker, had all stopped to stare at him. He swallowed, his mandibles drooping with the movement.

"Sir?" his apprentice said, nervously, "It checks out. I mean, it's irregular, but...that voice."

"Screen her at C-Sec," the controller said, his voice low. "Send her through Bailey's station and make damn sure it's her. Call ahead to the Council. They're going to want to know she's here."

He then leaned over the comm and said:

"Permission granted, Specter. Welcome back to the Citadel."

* * *

_Oh, I know. I'm so awful. I truly hate those movies where the people who are trying to find each other keep missing each other. But...I just couldn't resist. It was just begging to be told this way._


	17. Ropes

_Chapter 17_

_(ropes)_

_

* * *

_

Shepard walked into the cargo bay, found the empty space where mats had been set up as an exercise room.

_Alright, Shepard, let's see if you can take me._

_Take you, Kaidan? I think I can take you well enough._

She squeezed her eyes shut and held on to the memory: she and Kaidan had spent many afternoons down in the SSV Normandy's cargo bay, a cramped space, but the only place on the ship where they could practice their biotics between missions. On at least one occasion, however, their practice had ended with the two of them making a hasty exit to the elevator, and then to her quarters afterward.

Shepard sighed. All that time, she had been with Kaidan, she had worried about people finding out about the two of them. Now that he was gone, however, she could only wish that she hadn't worried so much. She should have tossed the damn regs out of the window and figured out some way to keep him with her every night.

She _would_ find him though, she thought. She knew Anderson thought he was doing what was best, but being put off like that had really made her angry.

"_Does Ka – does Commander Alenko think I'm dead? Does everyone think I'm dead? Or do they think that I've been undercover with Cerberus all this time?"_

"_I don't know, commander," came the enigmatic reply. "We received a lot of conflicting reports."_

"_Well," she said, torn between using Anderson as a messenger and keeping him out of the loop between her and her former lieutenant. "If anyone asks, tell them that I was out of commission all this time and I'm back now. And please let my former crew know that I need help with my mission and I will recruit any of them that I can."_

"_Sure, Shepard," he'd said, and from his tone, she knew he didn't plan to pass on either message. "I'll keep an ear open."_

But without telling him more, she couldn't ask for more.

She was grateful, at least, that Anderson had asked her to explain rather than simply sending out a Specter to take her down. That's probably what the other Council members had wanted to do. She suspected that he had gotten flack for trusting her, seeing as how he had learned that she was with Cerberus.

Yeah, she thought, frowning. Rumors that she was with Cerberus.

Funny how those rumors had traveled to the Citadel faster than she had. It seemed that someone had told Anderson she was alive – probably before she had even woken up to get to him in that short a time. She guessed at once who had done it. It made sense, after all, she realized, for the Illusive Man and friends to alienate her from her former allies by making them think that she was in Cerberus's camp. It was pretty smooth operating, if you thought about it. Now everyone who once trusted her would think she was a traitor. She was getting more tied up in Cerberus' coils every day.

Shepard looked at the empty space. Taking off her boots and socks, she set them aside, then stepped onto the mat. She stripped off her officer's jacket and tunic as well, until she stood wearing her pants and tank-top bra. She breathed in through her nose, let her eyes slide shut.

An empty space. A place to move, a place to think this through. She needed to put the puzzle pieces together.

As she breathed out through her mouth, her eyes snapped open. Her hands shot straight out – strike to the clavicle. Step sideways – snake down, up, punch to the solar plexus. Sweep, rising kick. Breathe.

She felt the ship shift slightly as it pulled away from the docks. She had come down here the moment she'd returned to the ship, barking an order at Joker to get them the hell off the station as quickly as possible. He'd seemed alarmed, but did as she asked.

"_What happened?" Joker had asked._

"_They stuck their heads up their asses, to quote our mess seargent," Shepard replied. "They didn't even give me a chance to explain about the Collectors or anything. Only positive outcome of this whole debacle is that we got groceries. And I bought a fish."_

_"A fish?" Joker sputtered._

_"It's pretty," Shepard replied._

"_What about me?" a laughing voice had asked. "You recruited me, too, didn't you? Aren't I better than a fish?"_

_Shepard had sighed and tried to paste on a polite smile. _

_"__Welcome to the terrorist cruise ship, Kasumi. Find a place to stay and settle in. It's going to be a long trip back to Omega."_

_She shook her head. Joker heard her mutter as she wandered away, "What a waste of time."_

Shepard finished the form and went directly into another. She got only a few steps before she realized that she needed to punch something other than air. Crossing to the interface on the wall, she programmed up a series of moving punching bags to fly at her head randomly. She ducked the first padded bar, and effectively blocked the second. Soon she was sweating profusely as the computer stepped up the drill to meet her speed and skill.

They hadn't even invited her up to the damn Council Chambers, she thought, bitterly. They had spoken with her via hologram, just as they had when she came to the Citadel for the first time as nothing more than an Alliance commander – a war hero, but virtually unknown to the alien races.

She supposed that had been more a security measure than anything, but it was still pretty damn insulting. She had saved them, but they obviously had thought she might try to put a few bullets into their hides. Well, hell, if _she_ had been on the Council, confronted with a once-dead Specter now working with Cerberus, she would have thought the same. Only Anderson had trusted her enough to meet with her in person. She was honored by that, even as she had to shake her head at his foolishness there.

Then again, he probably had a sniper stationed somewhere out in the Presidium. The man might have been her mentor, but he wasn't stupid.

"_You are with Cerberus now," the asari had said to her – or rather, the asari's hologram. "You are working with an avowed enemy of the council. This is treason. A capital offense."_

_Shepard didn't even get her mouth open to protest before Anderson said, "That's going too far. Shepard's a hero. I'm still a part of this Council and I'm not going to let this whitewash continue." _

_Shepard gave him a grateful, if wry, smile. This conference was truly getting worse and worse by the minute._

"_Maybe there is a compromise," the asari suggested. Nothing official, given your ties," she glanced nervously at Miranda and Jacob. Shepard gritted her teeth. Those two refused to leave her alone at all, and she hadn't wanted to start a fight over it right in the middle of the Citadel. "But we can reinstate you as a Specter," the asari finished._

"_And that means...?" Shepard asked. Clearly, her usual cool manner was failing her again, because she was sounding testy. _

_The asari explained what she had in mind. Shepard frowned._

"_So, basically, you do nothing," Shepard said. "You give me no help at all, no team, no weapons, no ship. You then expect me to take the ship Cerberus gave me," she pointed in the vague direction of the docks, "and work with their operatives," she jerked her thumb at the black-and-white-clad pair standing behind her, "all to risk my life in a suicide mission about a threat that faces the whole galaxy?" She stared at them in amazement. "And for all that you're going to 'kindly' not take me to trial and kill me?" She shook her head. "That's so good of you."_

"_Is this that human sarcasm?" the turian councilor asked. "Because if it is..."_

"_No," she shot back, "this is human disgust. Sarcasm was you with the..." she held up her fingers to mimic his movement of a few minutes ago, "...air quotes thing."_

"_Shepard," Anderson said warningly. His tone sounded like that of her father, now long gone. It brought her back to the present at once, though._

"_Alright," she said. "I see the position you're in. But mark my words, the Reapers are the real threat and you will have to face that threat soon enough. I just hope it's not too late already." _

_She took a deep breath. "Reinstate me then," she said. "And if you can, I would appreciate it if you could keep a path clear around me so that I don't cause too much collateral damage."_

_The turian councilor snorted, but the other two nodded._

"_Very well," the asari said. "Welcome back, Specter."_

Shepard hit the next punching bag so hard she bent the bar inside. The computer stopped suddenly, the screen blinking to indicate that something was broken. Shepard shook out her hands and looked down. She'd split the skin on several knuckles. Somehow, that made her smile. This too-smooth skin was just another reminder of the new body. She didn't have any callouses. She flexed her fingers again and crossed to the computer to try and program it to give her some other type of punching bag.

"_I told you they wouldn't do anything," Miranda had said as they got into a cab bound for the Zakera Ward a few minutes later. "The Alliance isn't even helping human..."_

"_Lawson," Shepard snapped at the woman. "You will keep your comments to yourself." Miranda blanched. _

_"If nothing else," Shepard went on, "I just gained our mission some kind of legitimacy. Cerberus ought to appreciate that. So you had better just shut up and let me handle this."_

"_Yes," Miranda nodded. _

"_That's 'Aye, aye ma'am'," Shepard told her. "Now where do we meet this thief-woman you mentioned?"_

In retrospect, the thief-woman, Kasumi, had turned out to be alright. That said a lot about this mission though, that the person Shepard trusted most from her ground crew was a thief she'd only just met. She wasn't sure about the woman's heist plan. That sounded just crazy. Shepard wanted to get some business taken care of on Omega first before going in for that.

_Yeah_, Shepard's eyes narrowed. _Omega_.

So she was going back to the place where she had begun. This drive out to the Citadel – three days across the traverse – and she was going right back to where the Illusive Man had wanted her to be from the start.

Shepard sucked on her bleeding knuckles and scowled. This wasn't her style. She wasn't any good at this...what had Kaidan once called it? Cloak-and-dagger stuff. She was a Marine. She knew tactical precision, she knew cool logic. She also knew that insane rush of just reacting, animal-like, in fight and somehow seeing everything moving slowly around you and fighting as though it was just what you did, not what you had to think about. She knew what it was to survive.

But her methods were direct – always direct. She had spent her life under the operating assumption that if you held the line long enough or flanked the enemy quickly enough, and threw enough grenades, well, hell, that usually won the day. Situations like setting a bomb in a genetic lab, fighting through endless mazes of crates in a warehouse – she knew this. But trying to figure out what evil-genius Illusive Man was going to do when he held all the cards, had been awake the two years that she had been out and clearly had been planning for this moment all that time...

Well, she was just plain...

Trapped.

Shepard swallowed.

Until she had spoken with Anderson, seen doors closing in her face right and left: first the Council, then the Alliance, then finally, painfully, Anderson himself, she hadn't realized how much she had counted on their help. Without even realizing it, she had come to the Citadel hoping beyond hope that the Alliance or Council or both of them would welcome he back with open arms, and with them at her back, she'd tell Cerberus to shove it – and then go about taking care of the Collectors on her own terms.

But that was not at all what had happened. Those groups had called her a traitor, essentially, then tossed her back to the wolves – or the three-headed dog, rather – with the barest promise not to kill her for it.

_Damn it_, she thought. She had been _dead_.

Only no one seemed to believe that. They all thought she had been undercover, or brainwashed to join Cerberus. Their reasoning was as wild as one could imagine, but all theories agreed that she had been alive all that time. She had hardly understood why no one seemed surprised to see her, but after seeing the 'official' Shepard merchandise in a Zakera Ward store, she began to understand. She had become...not a legend, but a mockery. She was on par with bigfoot and the leviathan of Dis. Who the hell would believe her now?

She would like to think that the Illusive Man had engineered this all, but she suspected that wasn't entirely true. He had just known the way the wind was blowing, and it apparently was blowing her right back to Omega, right back to his plans, right back to the Collectors.

He knew the path. He had the map. And she was going to have to walk a long, long way to get to the end of all this.

With the computer unresponsive, Shepard turned back to the mat. She would have to content herself with forms again, because she certainly couldn't go back up to the crew deck when she was this tense. She'd likely snap at someone and take out a wall.

Taking a deep breath, she started in on a routine she had made up herself. It was a mix of biotics and punches, intended to enhance her strength and extend her reach. As she worked through the form, she relished the movements, the way her new muscles responded so quickly, so readily. Her biotics were coming along, too, growing more controlled every day, such that she could risk letting out a little more power each time. This new body of hers was incredible. They'd rebuilt her well.

That thought made her pause.

Her parents had hated the idea of genetic manipulation. To their strict code of what was right and wrong, tampering with creation was an evil not to be borne. But after Mindoir, she'd had quite a bit of reconstruction done to save her life, and she'd had to accept that some things outside of her parent's code were – necessary. Maybe it was best they weren't here to see this. This body was amazing, but it would have shocked them.

As for what she thought about the new body... well, it was a body. It looked pretty much the same, so that was alright, too. Her mind was what worried her, yet that seemed to be intact. She could think and reason and that was something, at least. She didn't feel anything...missing. And she felt in her gut though that she was still – herself.

It was a start.

She slowed down and dropped into a seated position, legs crossed on the mat. Placing her hands on her knees, she let her eyes slide shut and began to take deep, slow breaths. She had never been very good at emptying her mind to meditate, but the action seemed to help her slow her thoughts.

_So what comes next?_

The future was a tangle. She was surrounded by ropes: she saw that now. Cerberus and their lies, the Alliance and the council and their hesitation. Her crew...

Her mind wandered at once to Kaidan. Where was he? Was this mission he was on dangerous? Had he heard these Shepard-sighting rumors and had they bothered him? Did he know she was truly alive?

Shepard frowned. Anderson wouldn't tell her about Kaidan because she was with Cerberus. Until today, she hadn't realized how much the association would keep her divided from her former allies. She sincerely hoped that she would be able to find Kaidan, but then again, she realized this wouldn't be as easy as she had hoped. He had thought she was dead and he thought Cerberus were terrorists. The news that she was with them was clearly going to shock him. If only there was a way to get a message to him first...

But even as she thought it, she knew it was too risky. The Illusive Man seemed like the kind of guy who would happily use Kaidan to get to her. If he knew how much Kaidan meant to her, he might do anything to the lieutenant – er, staff commander – to keep Shepard in line. It wasn't a risk Shepard was willing to take just yet. Until she knew what Cerberus was really after...

Because clearly Cerberus wanted something from her. They couldn't have brought her back just for _her_ benefit. She was being used again – but why?

Cerberus needed political standing, perhaps. They were suspect. Their methods were – more than harsh, as Yeoman Chambers had said. They had been diabolical in the past. But if Cerberus wanted to get involved in the mainstream, they needed an in. From a PR point of view Shepard knew she was about as pure as Cerberus was dirty. Or at least she had been before she died. Sure, she had some bad press, too, but after saving the Citadel, she'd been considered a hero – again. Maybe Cerberus wanted to use her as their poster girl to make them look good. That made sense. She knew that game.

But Cerberus clearly was trying to tie her to them, exclusively. They didn't want to get in nice with the Alliance or Council, and they weren't apologizing for anything they'd done before. So maybe she was a tool, and not a symbol.

She was pretty damn sure, however, Cerberus's deep and abiding concern for helpless colonials was not the real story. They'd killed enough colonials to disprove _that_ theory.

Ropes and more ropes, she thought.

Well, the best way to untie a knot was to follow it through all its loops and turns, then find the end, and work back. She'd get it untied somehow, and get loose of Cerberus. The key lay with the missing colonies.

She frowned and opened her eyes.

Missing colonies. Missing people – children and parents and... _Damn_.

If Cerberus knew how to pick a sensitive spot with her, they'd found it. She could not turn her back on those people, no matter how much she hated the circumstances of her return.

Alright then, she thought, standing, and feeling centered once more. With or without the Alliance's help, it was time to start tracing these ropes to their tangled ends.


	18. Flashback: Migraine

_Chapter 18_

_(flashback: thirteen hours lost)_

_

* * *

_

Kaidan stepped out of the shower and opened the door. He realized his mistake instantly. The change from the small, dimly lit bathroom into the brighter lights of the bedroom hit him like a blow to the head. He gripped the doorframe and sagged against it.

"Oh shit," he muttered.

"What?" Shepard looked up from where she sat at the edge of the bed, drying her hair with a towel. She wore a clean pair of underwear nothing on top. If it wasn't for the lights streaking before his eyes, Kaidan might have appreciated the view.

"Kaidan, what is it?" Shepard asked, frowning as she stood to cross to him. "Are you okay?"

"Damn it," he said, shaking his head. He slipped past her to lie down on the bed. He was leaving a wet spot in the middle of the sheets, but he didn't care. "I thought I was getting over these. Haven't had one in months."

"A migraine?" she asked, frowning suddenly.

"Yep," he nodded. He put his hand over his eyes, pressed his thumb and forefinger to them. "Oh God, this is coming on fast..."

"What can I do?" she asked, instantly clinical. "Dim the lights? Get you some meds?"

"Light, yeah..." he nodded. "Meds...I forgot meds..."

"I'll go get some," Shepard hit the lights, then found her bra and began pulling it on. "What kind do you need?"

"I...just...painkillers...anything..."

"Dr. Chakwas is off duty," she said, more to herself than him. "But I saw a clinic back that way. What else helps, Kaidan?" When he didn't answer, she asked again, "Kaidan?"

"Sorry..." Kaidan murmured. "Less than one day into our...leave...and I..."

"Don't worry about that," she said, pulling on her pants. She buttoned them, then reached for her boots. "Just tell me what you need."

Kaidan didn't answer. Shepard yanked on her boots, frowning at him all the while. She didn't know what to say or do. Shooting down enemies one by one, she knew. First aid and medigel, she knew. How to help Kaidan's sudden descent into pain? Not a clue. She found a clean shirt – one of Kaidan's, she saw, and pulled it on. It was a little big. She rolled up the sleeves, tucked it into her waistband, and grabbed the tangled mess that was her jacket. She began sorting out the sleeves and the holster inside.

"I'll be right back," she said, checking her pistol, shrugging into the holster, then pulling the jacket on over it all.

Kaidan peeked up at her through his fingers.

"You brought a gun...to a seduction?" he asked weakly.

"The Wards can be dangerous," she said leaning down to kiss him on the cheek. "I mean, just today I got pinned by this biotic..."

Kaidan grinned, then his smile faded with a wince of pain. Shepard's brows drew together in a worried expression.

"Alright," she said softly, "I'll be back as soon as I can. Just rest." She realized he was completely naked on the bed. She gently pulled a blanket up over him, and some strange impulse led her to tuck it in around his shoulders. She kissed his jaw briefly, trying not to feel hurt when he just hissed and pulled away.

"Meds are coming, Kaidan," she told him. "I'll do my best." Then she left in search of them, wishing she could do more.

* * *

"Can I help you?" The alien at the front desk of the clinic was slim and had a more feminine voice than Shepard had ever heard from a turian before. She realized at once that this must be one of the illusive female turians she had heard about. Shepard had often teased Garrus that she doubted their existence, since Shepard had never met one. Well, she thought, here was one now. Now if she could just meet a female volus and she would have met nearly every alien race in council space. Then again, with the volus, perhaps she had met a female and she just hadn't known it.

"I have a friend with a headache," Shepard said softly, looking around the office to where several other aliens of various races sat looking worried, tired, or, unsurprisingly, sick. "A migraine, actually. I need some meds for him – and any information you have about migraines. I don't know much..."

"We can't release medication to you," the turian said with a weary sigh. "With things the way they are on the Citadel, the black market for meds has gone through the roof. We need your so-called 'friend' to come herself, apply in person, and even then, it will take..."

"I'm a Specter," Shepard said quietly, deciding to pull that card. "I'm Commander Shepard of the SSV Normandy. Just give me some meds and some information so I can treat my friend."

"Commander...?" the turian looked up at her with beady yellow eyes and blinked.

"Look it up if you don't believe me," Shepard said, cutting her off. She didn't need the lady to go announcing it to the whole room. The turian obviously didn't believe her, because she checked her computer at once.

"I have a crew member with a medical condition..." Shepard went on, her voice low.

"The biotic?" the turian asked.

"That's him," Shepard nodded. Okay, she thought, this was where things got sticky. But the Normandy was being prepped for departure, so she couldn't very well go back to her own med bay. And there still was such a thing as medical privacy. She could get through this neatly, she was sure of it.

"Lieutenant Alenko is off duty and he had an episode. I was the only person he could reach. Our ship is locked down and I need to find him some meds." She felt rather proud of that. It sounded completely above board, and better yet, it was all true, too.

"He can't come here himself?"

"He said he couldn't move."

The turian frowned. Shepard could tell by the way her slim mandibles drooped.

"Technically, we can't give out medication unless it is to the patient..."

"Unless you have someone authorized to pick it up," Shepard told her, guessing at the rules rather than knowing them. "As the commanding officer of his ship that would be me. And," she added, "as a Specter, I could just demand..."

"Fine, fine," the turian scowled. "I'll let you back to see a doctor right away. Just, hurry please. We're very busy these days."

"I'll be out of here before you know it," Shepard promised her.

* * *

Kaidan lay on the bed, aware of just one thing: the horrible throbbing right in the center of his forehead, directly behind the bridge of his nose, then up a little to the right. He couldn't think of much, but his few thoughts centered around the idea that it would be absolutely glorious if he could just dig his fingers right into his skull and scoop out that throbbing mass and throw it out the window at the Ward below.

A chime sounded somewhere to his left. He winced at the sound, then at the opening and closing of the door, at the sound of footsteps, then at the sound of Shepard's voice.

"I brought you something," she said. His stomach turned over at the sudden smell of food.

"No..." he moaned. "Can't eat."

"Oh, right. Nausea." He heard her walking away, heard the bathroom door close. The smell went away, but the nausea remained.

"Be quiet," he grumbled at her.

"Here," she said, softly, though even that sound was killing him. She turned down blanket, pulled at his arm. He let his arm lie on the bed beside him. He heard some shuffling, then heard her mutter, "First aid training, don't fail me now."

He felt her rubbing hard at the inside of his elbow, then felt a few hard taps. "This may sting," she said. Then he felt a prick, followed by a burning sensation that flowed right down his arm. He hissed in a breath.

"Don't move," she said, holding his arm still. Her voice was commanding, at normal volume, and it felt like a grenade had gone off right by his head. He grunted in response.

A moment later, there was a sharp, painful sliding sensation as she removed the needle and then all he felt was the burning trailing down to his fingers and up to his shoulder. There was a soft brushing of something over the place where the shot had gone in. Kaidan cracked open one eye to see Shepard kissing his arm.

"Thanks," he murmured. She gave him a smile that was both worried and pleased all at once.

"Kaidan..." she began, then she broke off when he winced once more.

He lay there, feeling the burning turn into numbness, felt it creeping up the back of his neck, around his throat, and finally, mercifully, spinning its web across the muscles of his face to reach the throbbing pulse at the front of his brain. He felt the web branching over that ball of pain, trapping it, slowing it, even as he felt Shepard lie down beside him and lay her head on his chest. Normally, he would want to be left alone in the middle of a migraine, not to be closed in by people watching over him with their misunderstanding and their worry. But either Shepard's concern was different or the meds were stronger than usual. He felt himself drifting off to sleep, wrapped tightly in her arms.

* * *

Kaidan woke to a dark room, feeling groggy, but with nothing left of the migraine than a slight headache. He looked up and saw Shepard's face, illuminated by orange light. She was sitting in the chair in the corner, a datapad on her lap.

"Hey," he said.

"Oh," she said, looking up and switching off the datapad at once. "You're up." In the sudden darkness, he heard her ask, "How are you..." She broke off and tried again in a whisper, "How are you feeling?"

"Alright, actually," he said. "Hungry."

"You up for some food?" she whispered. "It's cold by now, but..."

"Yeah," he said, his voice at normal volume. "You can talk, you know."

"Okay," she said, pitching her voice to the same level as his. "I wasn't sure." There was a pause. "Can I risk some light?"

"Yeah," he said, leaning over for the lamp. He closed his eyes tightly as he switched it on. With his eyes still shut against the glare, he turned his face away.

"You gonna be alright?" she asked.

"Shepard, don't treat me like I'm broken," he snapped.

"I'm not..." she let out a frustrated breath. "Okay, I won't. I'll just follow your lead. You'll need to let me know what you need here."

"Food," he told her.

"Got it." She went to the bathroom, brought back a giant bag filled with small boxes of various sizes.

"Earth-Chinese?" he asked.

"An asari approximation of it," she replied ruefully. "There's a genuine ramen place down by the transport hub, but it was closed. Maybe we can stop there tomorrow, on our way back to the Normandy."

Kaidan looked down at the food before her, his appetite suddenly failing him.

"Tomorrow?" He glanced at the clock. "Oh my God, I just wasted thirteen hours of our almost non-existent shore leave with a migraine."

"It would have been less," she told him, "Only it took me a while to get that medicine. I'm sorry about that."

"No," he told her, "that medicine was..." He stopped and remembered it. "That stuff was incredible. What the hell was that?"

"Experimental is what it was," she replied. "It's something the asari are developing for human biotics – started as a military contract for the Alliance, still restricted in most circles. Lucky for you, you sent a Specter to do your shopping for you."

"You didn't...tell them that we were...together?"

"I managed to avoid telling them the whole truth," she said. She explained her conversation with the clinic receptionist and the doctor afterward. "So the doctor suggested this. She was an asari, and I suspect she has stock in the company. I bought some regular meds, too, because I didn't want to shoot you up with just anything, but when I came back here and saw you like that..." She broke off and gave him a trouble look. "Well, I gave you the strong stuff first. I hope it helped."

"It did," he agreed. "It completely knocked me out."

"I'm glad it worked. I know first aid, but I know squat about persistent conditions."

"Because you don't have any," he said, a slight edge to his voice.

"True," she nodded. "My ailments have all been psychological." When he didn't smile, she said, "That was supposed to be a joke, Kaidan."

"Yeah," he said, non-committally.

"Here," she said, turning her attention to the food. "Eat." She began to serve him up a bowl full of rice and some unidentifiable vegetables that smelled good, even if they were cold.

"I suppose I owe you an apology," she went on after a moment.

"Why?" he asked as he took the bowl.

"Well, I was reading up on your condition," she waved a hand at the datapad. "And I honestly, didn't realize how bad things can get for you. You've been such a rock all this mission, I just came to assume..."

"That I wouldn't be a problem?" he suggested. He stabbed his rice with a pair of chopsticks.

"Not a problem, Kaidan," she said, touching his arm lightly. "Never a problem. I just forgot that you've been on a routine lately. You said it yourself," she began to serve herself a bowl as well, "your headaches bothered you less the more you fought. I hadn't really thought about it, but when we were on our mission, you stepped up your powers and stopped holding back. You also got six square meals a day, slept for at least ten hours a night, and ended up using your biotics at full power at least three times a week – sometimes more. I'd call that a pretty healthy routine." She pulled out a pair of chopsticks and toyed with her food as she went on.

"However, after our last battle our sleep schedules have been totally off. The barracks only serve three meals a day, and I don't know about you, but I simply cannot eat that stuff. And then I drag you here and keep you up all night and forget to feed you after just one meal..."

"That food was supposed to last two days," he said, looking at the discarded bag in the corner.

"Yeah, well, we're biotics," she reminded him. "I should have known better. And speaking of biotics, it didn't help that the only time you used your powers all this last week was too..." She smiled and shook her head. "Not that I didn't love it, but still. I guess it was inevitable that you'd have an episode. I'm just sorry I wasn't watching out for you more."

"It's not your fault," he told her.

"Well, it's not your fault either," she replied. "It was just bad luck. And I'm glad those meds worked so well."

"Yeah," he nodded. "I feel almost normal now with the food. We should get some more of that medicine before we go."

"Ah..." Shepard made a face, "It's...kind of expensive."

"How much?" Kaidan asked. She told him. His jaw dropped open. "You spent _how_ many credits on one dose?"

"Hey," she said, "I had the money. I just don't have enough to stock the med bay with the stuff."

"Shepard," he frowned. "You can't be..."

"What? Watching out for you? Kaidan, I need you at your best. It was money well spent."

"Need me at my best, huh?" he asked her.

"Well, naturally," she said, grinning. "I mean, who else is going to join me for a take-out picnic in the nude? Wrex?" Kaidan laughed at the terrible picture that brought to mind.

"There's just one problem with that suggestion, Shepard," he told her. "You're still wearing clothes."

"Am I?" she asked innocently. "I hadn't noticed."

"I had," he told her, reaching for her jacket.

"Hey now," she said, tapping his hand lightly with her chopsticks. "Eat first. Sex later."

"Is that an order, ma'am?" he asked her, his eyes glinting.

"Damn," she muttered, "they didn't tell me that the meds would make you horny again."

"I don't need meds for that," he said, letting his gaze trail down her body.

"Alenko," she said, raising an eyebrow, "I want you. I do. But you need to eat your vegetables first."

They looked at each other, eyes locked, lips twitching. Then both of them burst into sudden laughter.

"God, Shepard," Kaidan said, shaking his head, "I don't think I'll ever get enough of this."

"Enough of what?" she asked him, amused.

"Enough of...any of it. The sex, the...jokes. Watching out for you," he ducked his head, then looked up to give her a slightly goofy grin, "Having you watch out for me."

Shepard returned the grin, with all its accompanying goofiness. "Same here," she said. "But you forgot the near-death situations and saving the galaxy stuff."

"Eh," he cocked his head, "I could take it or leave it. No," he said, reconsidering, "I'm damn proud of that. You did good work, Shepard. You realize that everything out there," he waved a hand at the window, "even this little picnic here, is all because of you."

"It's because of us," she told him, "Because of our team. We did this together."

"You led us."

"It's easy to lead the right kind of people," she told him, "especially when the goal is so clear. No, Kaidan, I appreciate the compliment, but credit for all this goes to everyone on the Normandy. I only wish they could have given Specter status to us all."

"Do you really want to give Joker that kind of power?" Kaidan asked her, raising an eyebrow.

Shepard made a face. "Good point."

"I think they made the right choice when they picked you to be a Specter, Shepard," he went on. "Just like I think I made the right choice when I..."

"Picked me to be _your_ Specter?" she asked teasingly when he trailed off.

"I was going to say when I came to deflower you the night before Ilos. But then I realized that comparing me to the Council just...wasn't a good comparison."

"No," she told him, smiling at him over her bowl of rice. "There's no comparing you to the Council – or to anyone, Kaidan. There's no comparison at all."


	19. Comparisons

_Chapter 19_

_(comparisons)_

_Note: If you hadn't noticed, I like to trail closing lines of one chapter into the opening lines of the next. 'Tis just too much fun..._

_

* * *

_

Shepard could not help but compare the man to Kaidan, just like she had done with every person she had met thus far on the mission. Like all the rest of them, the scarred mercenary fell far short of her former lieutenant.

Not only was the guy the type of person she had always avoided dealing with in the past, but he clearly didn't have any of Kaidan's unique skills, either. But then, none of them did. She had two biotics on her team, both hand-picked by Cerberus, and they couldn't register half of Kaidan's power. And none of the folks she had met had his knowledge of combat tech or tactical maneuvers, and they didn't even come close to being as trustworthy...

This guy had been kicking someone in the balls when she had walked up to him. Hell of a recommendation, that.

"The Normandy is that way, Zaeed," Shepard told the man wearily. As he started to walk past her, she stepped into his path and added, "And think about this as you settle in: your treatment of prisoners will shape up when you're under my command. Otherwise, your contract ends now, deal with the Illusive Man or no."

The man's one good eye seemed to rest on her for a long moment, then he turned away, "Fair enough," he drawled. "Your ship, your rules. You can be as soft on these aliens as you want." He hauled his batarian bounty to his feet, stuck a pistol between the alien's shoulders, and sauntered away.

"I don't think that was wise," Miranda said quietly. "He may see that as weakness on your part..."

"I'm an Alliance woman first and foremost," Shepard snapped at her. "And I don't give a damn if you Cerberus flunkies like it, but I will be following Council protocols here. Shooting unarmed civilians prisoners is _not_ going to happen on my watch. Got it?"

Miranda nodded. An uncomfortable silence settled over the grimy hallway. A thudding sounded from somewhere beyond the doorway to their right, like a heavy heartbeat pulsing through the Omega station.

"So," Kasumi said after a minute, "Don't we have a party to crash or something? That should be fun. I like clubs."

"You're not going to like this one," Miranda said, half to herself. "It's very...low class."

"Ooh, I like low class," Kasumi replied, her eyes twinkling under her hood. "All the better to go unnoticed."

Shepard smiled a little at Kasumi's words. The thief had a wry sense of humor and seemed a strangely stable individual, given her past. Again, Shepard thought, it said something that a master thief that she'd only just met was currently her most trusted member of her ground team.

On the way to Omega, Shepard had looked over the recruitment dossiers that the Illusive Man had sent to her: convicts and mad scientists, mercs and thieves, all of them. She didn't know what the Illusive Man was thinking, but one thing had seemed clear: she was being surrounded by people who could get the job done, but were unlikely to be any more loyal to her than to Cerberus. In fact, they were far more likely to be loyal to Cerberus, considering that was where their paychecks were coming from. And they were pretty hefty paychecks, indeed.

Shepard had never trusted mercenaries. She took pay for her work with the Alliance, but that was different: it was her job, her line of work to defend humanity – and the Council, as well. But mercs were just guns for hire. They liked to romanticize their role in galatic society, but they were just basically thugs who got their creds and their kicks out of beating the helpless. She found them a pretty disgusting lot, all in all. In truth, the only thing separating Cerberus from a merc organization in Shepard's opinion was a better bank roll, most scientists on the team, and a more evil-genius "take over the world" approach to life.

So when she took at look at her current crew and these people she was supposed to be recruiting next, she wasn't sure if she should try to come up with a way to win their loyalty so that they would stand with her against Cerberus (should it come to that) or if she should just dump them all out the airlock and just go find Kaidan.

As tempting as that last idea was, however, she could see some problems with it. If she spaced the ground team, well, first that would be unethical, and secondly, the crew might mutiny. And if she spaced the entire crew, that would mean taking out some really decent people. Plus there would be no more asari gumbo from Mess Seargent Gardiner. Shepard had to admit that the guy could cook, and like most Marines and every singe biotic she had ever known, one way to her heart was right through her stomach. She really liked that guy, though she did hope he'd start washing his hands more often.

It seemed that trying to earn the loyalty of her crew was the plan for now. Only time would tell if they were the sort of people whose loyalty was worth earning. So that meant she was stuck with team Cerberus for the time being.

Still, what she wouldn't give to have Kaidan at her back her right about now.

* * *

Kaidan had a few minutes, so he decided to pay for an extranet terminal and check his messages. He wasn't sure he would have any, but he was hoping...

_Hi from Lisa._

Kaidan smiled to find that his hope had been well placed. There at the top of his inbow was a message from the Citadel doctor. He opened it and read:

_Dear Alenko,  
__I hope this email finds you well. I don't have a lot of time to write – I have an exam to study for. If I pass it, I'll be one step closer to that clinic back on Earth. Here's to hoping!  
__I don't know where you'll be when you get this, so keep safe. I hope you have a good time on your mission.  
__Sincerely,  
__Lisa_

Kaidan finished the message, then shook his head. It wasn't very long, or terribly...anything, really. But it was nice to have a message that wasn't strictly business. After all, everything else in his inbox was...

Kaidan's eyes narrowed at the next email in the queue. It was from Joker. He hesitated, then opened it:

_Alenko -  
__Hey, where are you? I need to talk to you in person, because this account is totally being watched. I mean like, right now, there's a giant blue eye staring over my shoulder. It's creepy.  
__Look, I've been forgiven, and so I really want to make it all up to you. Just tell me where you are and I'll explain everything when I see you. Or maybe I'll have someone else do the explaining.  
__- Joker_

Kaidan frowned.

Forgiven? Explaining?

Great, he thought. Joker had been annoying enough when he was a cynical bastard, but if he had up and found religion, there was no telling how obnoxious he might become. Still, it was probably better than him drinking himself to death, which was what Kaidan had heard was happening. Then again, with that line about being watched, maybe Joker had found religion _and_ was drinking. What a combination that would be.

Kaidan briefly considered sending Joker a message, but he saw that his transport to Horizons was arriving at the docking bay. He still had a message from Alliance command to read about his contact for the next mission and he hadn't written Lisa back.

Kaidan closed the email from Joker.

He'd get back to it some other time.

* * *

Shepard took a look around at the streets before her. The city built into an asteroid was, not surprisingly, a dump. Miranda must have seen her disgust, because she nodded and said, "Omega. What a piss hole. I've come here on business before and I always needed a shower afterwards. In addition to the usual decontamination, that is."

"This is...something else," Shepard agreed. She led the two other women over to the blazing sign that announced the club Afterlife lay beyond. The bouncer at the door let them in immediately, saying that Aria had been expecting them. After making their way by a jumpy group of batarians, Shepard led the trio through the main doors to the club, then froze in awe.

"Okaaay," she said aloud.

"Wow," Kasumi said behind her. "That's quite the view."

_I can see why this place is so popular. It's got quite the view._

Shepard couldn't tell if she wanted to laugh or be frown at the memory of the time when Kaidan had walked into Chora's Den all those months – no, years – ago and stared at the so-called 'view.' That place was small potatoes compared with Afterlife. This place was bigger, flashier, smellier, and the asari were – she had to admit – better dancers. It was probably best Kaidan wasn't here. He'd probably stare at the asari and she'd be forced to kill some of them.

Though maybe, she thought, cocking her head, when this was all over, she could learn how to dance like that. If Kaidan liked that kind of thing... Hell, why not? She was athletic. Surely she could learn to bend like...

Okay, maybe not. But thinking about being able to turn Kaidan's head with a dance like that was a hell of a lot better than dwelling on the current location or company. Even now, she could imagine the ropes tangling around her ever more tightly. One of them was named Miranda, and one named Zaeed...

Truly, Shepard thought as she made her way into the club. She seriously needed to find someone for her ground team that she could trust. Otherwise, or she was going to go crazy on this mission without someone to watch her back.

* * *

About twenty floors below Afterlife in a dingy maze of corridors hanging from the asteroid known as Omega, a very weary turian lined up one more shot and squeezed the trigger. The merc fell dead on the bridge. About thirty-odd other corpses lay around him. The turian popped the heat sink from his rifle and took a deep breath. That was the last one for now, but there would be more.

There were always more.

The turian dropped down behind cover and looked at his small stash of thermal clips. Behind his thick helmet, he gritted his sharp teeth.

He was coming to the end. It wouldn't be long now before one of these waves would get past his guard and he wouldn't be able to protect himself any longer.

After all, he was up here alone. And he had no one to watch his back.


	20. Archangel

_Chapter 20_

_(Garrus)_

_

* * *

_

**Note: **Feel free to ignore these ramblings if you like. This is just an update for those of you who've subscribed to this story. I just wanted to explain the delay - and to say you all rock. I had not realized how many people subscribed to this story - I'd just been tracking comments - then logged into my email and saw all the updates. I was blown away and totally honored by how many of you have been reading this. Seriously, it means so much to me. Thank you, thank you. It made me want to find that muse, drag her back to my computer by the hair, and keep writing.

Speaking of hair and that lost muse both, holy FanFic, Batman, she took a long vacation there. I just could NOT write about Garrus to save my life. Oddly enough, I found the Valkyrie muse again when debating over which hair to use for her in my Mass Effect 2 playthrough. I wasn't satisfied with the imported hair for Kyrie and the custom hair seemed a little strange on an operating table. After deliberating for days, the hubby said, "Well, heck, wouldn't Wilson have just shaved her?" And I thought...oh my _GOD _that's brilliant. So I went back and re-wrote sections of the story, most notably Chapters 4 and 9, to reflect that change. I've heard other folks say that they took it that Shep had implants, had her hair growing out over two years, etc. But I went with the Wilson-shaved-her and kept her shaved route and liked it as a narrative device for the fan fic. In playing the game, it's SO amazing. Kyrie looks so sad and pathetic, yet fierce as well. I got real cozy with the Gibbed's Mass Effect Save editor and will hack longer hair back onto her over the course of the game. If you want to see the results, check my homepage later, as I'll be posting pics and codes.

Anyhow, something about the hair jumpstarted my writing (I'm such a girl sometimes, I swear) and here, finally, is Garrus. And I can't wait for Horizons with a biotic-cult-looking Shep. Or maybe I can, cause it will be painful. Either way, back to the story...

* * *

"Garrus!" Shepard cried, throwing her arms wide.

Her voice rang slightly in the open space that was Archangel's base. Well, this was something else, she thought. They'd come here looking for some sniper on Omega and had instead found one of Shepard's dearest friends. She doubted the Illusive Man would like this turn of events, and that just make her all the more pleased. She walked up to the turian, then stopped short of hugging him. She noticed at once that he was breathing heavily and seemed to be favoring his right side.

"You okay?" she asked him, her joy suddenly fading into concern. "I've got medigel," she added.

"I'm fine," he coughed.

Shepard's eyes narrowed at him. "You're not fine," she said. "And how the hell did you manage to piss of every major merc group in the Terminus Systems?"

"It wasn't easy," Garrus chuckled. "I really had to work at it."

Shepard smiled at the joke, but she also felt even more worried at his words. Garrus was kidding around, but he also sounded delirious. She began to wonder how long he'd been up here, if he'd eaten or slept recently. She took a look around. That bridge was a good choke point, but if they sent enough mercs at once, they might slip into this base. There was plenty of cover here and the backstairs had been crawling with krogran when she'd shown up. She'd gotten here in time just to shoot down a Blood Pack merc right at Garrus' back. She wasn't sure if he'd even seen that.

"What's the status?" she asked, instantly falling into take-charge mode. _This I can handle_, she thought. Cerberus's watching her? The Illusive Man's lies? Those things creeped her out, worried her, made her edgy. But this, a desperate rescue operation of an old friend she knew and trusted? _Bring it on._

Garrus explained the dire situation, how he planned to get out of it, then added with a sharp-toothed grin, "Just like old times, huh?"

"Or something," she said, smiling a little. "Alright. You ready to get rescued, turian?"

Garrus settled down into his makeshift bunker. "Rescued," he muttered. "That's embarrassing."

"You'll get over it," she said cheekily. "Oh, and this is Kasumi and Miranda." As Garrus nodded at them both, she told the two women, "This is Garrus Vakarian, the turian who shot Saren in the head. Keep him alive for me, will you?"

"I was doing alright without you, Shepard," Garrus told her.

"Yeah, you nailed me good back there," she admitted.

"Concussive rounds only," he said. "I couldn't let the mercs get suspicious."

"Uh huh," Shepard said doubtfully. "Well hey, I was distracted. I thought it might be you up there and was stopping to try and see."

"You recognized me?" he asked.

"I thought I recognized the rifle," she told him. Garrus nodded, then turned away suddenly. "Here they come," he said, motioning to the bridge. He held up his rifle and looked down the scope. "Scouts."

He handed Shepard the rifle. She took it with some surprise. Garrus never _ever_ had handed over his rifle. He must really be delirious, she thought. She pushed that thought aside as she saw mechs starting across the bridge. She sniped one, then smiled. "One less." She handed the rifle back.

"Indeed," Garrus said approvingly. "I'll stay here with the rifle and you - you do what you do best." He grinned. "Just like old times."

"You said it," she replied, carefully gathering her biotic power until she had conjured a roiling ball of energy in her palm. Garrus looked at her and nodded.

Then, together, the two friends turned their attention to the waves of mechs pouring over the bridge below.

* * *

"Garrus!" Shepard cried, rolling the turian onto his back. Blue blood pooled around her knees, making them stick to the metal floor. That would be about the fourth time she called his name in less than an hour, she thought absently to herself, though this time might be the last that he heard her. The idiot had rushed headlong into a rocket. It looked like he'd tried to put himself between the gunship and her. _Idiot_.

She had screamed his name, pushed down a rising sense of panic to focus on taking out that ship. They'd battled all morning, Shepard with biotics, Garrus with his rifle. Miranda and Kasumi had done an admirable job of helping, Shepard had to admit. Miranda had even helped keep Garrus alive for a while there when Shepard had to take out the mercs who had gotten into the lower tunnels. But if she lost Garrus now to his own careless delirium...

"Hold on," she told him. Miranda was already calling for Jacob to bring the Kodiak in for a pick up and to bring a stretcher and several strong crewmates to carry Garrus out of here. Kasumi was standing by looking a little out of place. Shepard pulled out her omni tool and did what she could for her friend, but her first aid had been Alliance training. She knew next to nothing about turian medicine, except that it was probably quite different from humans.

"Don't die on me, Garrus," Shepard kept telling him, though he didn't seem to hear. "You are _not_ allowed to leave me. Got that? It's an order."

She knew it wouldn't do any good. Staying or going depended entirely on him and factors out of her control, but she kept saying the words anyhow. When his eyes rolled back into his head and closed, she had to fight to keep calm.

Garrus had been the other half of her strike team when facing down Saren. He had heard Sovereign's message on Virmire, been at her back when she chose to save Kaidan, had heard Vigil's message about the Reapers on Ilos, had fired round after round into Saren's possessed body to defeat him. He had been there when she survived the wreckage of the Citadel. He had been at her back every damn day after – him and Kaidan both. And through it all, he'd become her friend. She'd thought of him and Kaidan as her team: the two best soldiers in her little Specter army, as it were. She couldn't stand the thought of loosing him now.

* * *

It seemed to take forever to get Garrus back to the Normandy and in to the med bay. Doctor Chakwas shooed Shepard away, and then Shepard hardly knew what to do with herself. She went and hung around Joker for a while, but the helmsman had nothing helpful to say. Joker was embroiled in an argument with EDI about the drive core and didn't seem to want to talk about Garrus at all. Shepard talked with Kelly briefly, but the yeoman's rather sexual questions about Garrus just left Shepard feeling vaguely disturbed. It was like the times as a teen when Shepard had heard some girls checking out her younger brothers. She was glad her brothers were popular and all, but she really didn't want to overhear anything about it. Besides, the idea of Kelly hitting on an alien – of any human and alien being together in that way... Shepard shook her head. Besides, it was completely inappropriate considering that Garrus might not make it...

Shepard wandered up to her quarters. That damn buzzing in her skull started up again the moment she walked through the door. She was going to have to figure out what it was up here that set her implants off like that. Maybe it was the lighting.

She fed her fish, finding that act rather soothing. There was something strangely comforting about keeping the little guys alive. She might be feeling lost and confused, unable to save her friends or those missing colonists or herself, even. But at least she could keep these lovely creatures safe. The blue and yellow fish glided happily through the giant tanks. _Ignorance is bliss_, Shepard thought, wryly.

She realized she was still in her armor and covered in blue blood. She took the armor off, cleaned it, then took a shower, and changed into her officer's uniform. She took a look in the mirror and frowned. After some consideration, she put some make up on again. She'd taken the time to wear makeup to the Council meeting. It had not seemed to impress them, but at least she'd felt more like herself, walking into that encounter. She supposed it was a small thing, but considering how much her appearance looked altered with the hair gone, it felt like some small act of reclamation to paint her eyes. Plus the effect looked rather nice. She wasn't trying to copy Miranda, she told herself, with this lace underwear and the eyeliner and all, but to simply feel a little bit more like woman rather than Frankenstein was a step in the right direction.

Shepard frowned as her thoughts returned to Garrus, still down there in the med bay. She hoped that he would come through. She was just about to call down to Doctor Chakwas and ask for an update when Jacob's voice came over the comm, calling her down to the comm room. Shepard replied she'd be down at once and headed for the elevator.

When she walked into the room, however, Jacob looked up at her sadly.

"It's Garrus, ma'am..." he began.

Shepard froze in the doorway, feeling like her heart had stopped. "Is he...?" she couldn't even finish that sentence. She had lost him, she thought. And it was all her fault. If only she'd gone to Omega right away. If only she hadn't wasted time with Anderson and the Council...

"We've done what we could for Garrus, but he took a bad hit," Jacob was saying. "Chakwas tried to correct it with a surgical procedure and some cybernetics, but…"

"Wait," Shepard said, striding into the room, "Corrected? You mean..."

"Shepard."

Shepard froze, then turned with a grin on her face.

"Thank God," she murmured, delighted to see Garrus standing behind her.

"Tough son of a bitch," Jacob said, his voice approving. "Didn't think he'd be up yet."

Shepard just grinned, her heart finally settling back into its normal pace. He was alright. Garrus was alright. One of _her_ team, one of _her_ friends, was back with her and he was alright. Suddenly, the ship didn't seem like such a cage anymore. She had Garrus back. She had Joker and Doctor Chakwas, too, come to that. Until that moment, she hadn't realized how much she had been missing her old team. Certainly she had always given them credit for her success in the past, but until now, she hadn't fully realized just how much she had come to rely on them – how much she had to fight _for_ them to feel like she wanted to be fighting at all. This might turn out okay after all, she thought.

Garrus strode into the room, looking like he hadn't just been saved a few hours ago. Shepard wondered at once what Doctor Chakwas had given Garrus to get him up and walking around like that – or how much he was just running on the turian equivalent of adrenaline.

"Nobody would give me a mirror," he said, pointing at his jaw. "How bad is it?"

_How bad?_ Shepard wondered. _What...?_ Then she realized about half his face was gone. She hadn't even noticed in her relief to see him alive. Well, hell, she thought, who was she to care about scars? Here she was looking like some genetic experiment gone awry. She almost said something comforting, then realized that probably wouldn't go over very well with the turian. She shrugged and decided to make light of it.

"Hell, Garrus, you were always ugly," she said. "Slap some face paint on there and no one would notice."

Garrus shook his head and laughed. "Damn it, Shepard," he said. "Don't make me laugh. My face is barely holding together as it is." He paused, then added thoughtfully, "Some women find scars attractive. Mind you, most of those women are krogan."

Shepard shook her head and smiled. "Dismissed, Jacob," she told the other man. "I want to talk to my friend in private."

The Cerberus officer gave them a salute and left, his face impassive. Garrus looked to Shepard in curiosity.

"What was that all about?" he asked, his one working mandible drooping.

"We're being monitored," Shepard told him, nodding at the ceiling. "Watch what you say."

"They're monitoring you?" Garrus blinked. "You're working with them and they're _monitoring _you?"

"Yeah," she said, frowning. Garrus returned her frown.

"Frankly, this worries me," he said. "Cerberus, Shepard? You remember those sick experiments they were doing?"

"Oh, I remember," Shepard said. "How many did we shut down?"

"Half a dozen at least," Garrus replied.

"Yeah," she shook her head. "The Illusive Man and I have had words about it."

"Words?" Garrus asked, his disgust evident.

"It's a long story," Shepard sighed. She gave him the short version of her return, her visit to Freedom's Progress, and what happened after. "That's why I'm glad you're here, Garrus," she finished. "If I'm walking into hell, I want someone I trust at my side."

"You realize this plan has me walking into hell, too," he observed wryly. "Hmm. Just like old times."

"Hey," Shepard shrugged. "What can I say? I know how to show my crew a good time."

Garrus's face fell suddenly and he looked away. Shepard blinked at the sudden change in him.

"Hey," she said. "That was a joke."

"Yeah," he muttered.

When he didn't say anything more, Shepard felt a little uncomfortable. What had she said to bother him? she wondered.

"Garrus?" she asked. "Is something wrong?"

"No," Garrus said, sounding strangely...nervous? "I just wondered..." He paused, looking her over. "What happend to your hair?"

"Huh?" Shepard blinked, then ran her hand over the back of her head. The light fuzz tickled her now. She wished once more that it would grow out more quickly. She felt a little self-concious of it all over again. "Well," she said, letting her hand drop. "Cerberus' rebuilding of me apparently didn't include hair plugs. They gave me implant upgrades and muscle and bone weave, but no hair."

Garrus looked at her hard, his light blue eyes seeming to bore into her.

"It looks that bad?" she asked, making a face.

"It looks...different," he said, at last. "Human hair is one of those things..." He stopped.

"What?" she pressed.

"I don't get it," he finshed, still looking at her. "It's just dead protien strands, right?"

"Leave it to an alien to put human vanity into perspective," Shepard laughed.

"Did I say something wrong?" he frowned.

"Not at all," she said, smiling. "I just..." She shrugged. "I don't like the cut, honestly. It's evidence I've been...tampered with." Garrus frowned even more. "But it's okay," she added. "It will grow back. Hair always does, as my mother reminded me when I tried to cut it myself once. It'll just take a while. In the meantime, I guess this is one way to keep it out of my way."

Garrus nodded, and Shepard got the distinct impression that he didn't know what to say. She suddenly found that she felt the same way. She shrugged and went for a light tone of voice as she asked:

"So, for coming face to face with someone you thought was dead, Garrus, you didn't seem all that surprised to see me. Though," she added, cocking her head, "Tali wasn't either, come to think of it. Or Anderson."

"You brought Tali with you?" Garrus asked, brightening.

"Sadly not," she replied. "She didn't come with me after Freedom's Progress, but hopefully we cant meet up with her later. Though frankly, I was worried about that mission of hers. It's not like her to be cryptic."

"No," Garrus agreed. "She was more likely to talk your ear off about the salvage she picked up."

"Yeah," Shepard said, smiling sadly as yet another wave of nostalgia washed over her. "So," she said, shaking off her sense of sadness, "Had you heard rumors that I was alive or something?"

"I think everyone heard rumors," Garrus replied. "Most of them were just that – rumors, but the ones on Omega were...more, I guess. I heard that your corpse passed through threre – just before it got shipped out to Cerberus so that you could be brought back. I didn't believe it at the time, but..." He broke off and shrugged.

"Huh," Shepard said, filing that bit of information away so she could ask Miranda about it later. "Well," she said, "I'm glad it worked out like this. I doubt the Illusive Man would have sent me out to recruit you if he knew who you were. I've gotten the distinct impression he wants to keep me divided from my former team – Joker and Chakwas aside."

"Joker's here, too?" Garrus stiffened, his mandible flared.

"Yeah," Shepard said, then she realized the reason for his reaction. "Don't talk to him about the accident," she said sharply. "I spoke with him about it and we're resolved. Got it?"

Garrus's jaw tightened, but he nodded.

"What about Alenko?" he asked after a pause.

Shepard stopped at that. It was strange somehow, to hear someone else ask about Kaidan – someone other than her.

"I don't know," she said, slowly. "I keep asking, but no one knows. Even Anderson is keeping me in the dark. I guess they figured I'd recruit him for Cerberus right out from under the Alliance."

Garrus said nothing. Shepard wasn't quite sure how the turian managed it, but his face suddenly seemed shuttered.

"Well," he said, turning to leave. "I'm fit for duty whenever you need me, Shepard. I'll settle in and see what I can do at the forward batteries."

"Okay," she said, nodding to him as he turned to go. "I'll come check in with you later. And Garrus..."

The turian stopped in the doorway and looked back at her.

"It's good to have you back," she said.


	21. Unwelcome Guests

_Chapter 21_

_(unwelcome guests)_

_**Note**: For the brief smut, I entirely blame the music in Afterlife. You listen and see if your mind doesn't go to the gutter, too._

_

* * *

_

"It's good to have you here," the woman said. From behind her, a man glared at Kaidan with an expression that said he did not agree.

"I'm Lilith, this is Mark. You'll be staying with us. I'm afraid that the spare bedroom is a little small, but..."

"Damn it, woman," Mark said. "He's a damn Marine. They could sleep in a damn shoe box and find it big enough after those damn ships of theirs."

_That's four 'damns' in one sentence_, Kaidan thought, absently. _Interesting_.

"Oh," Lilith frowned. "Don't mind Mark. He just..."

"I just don't like the Alliance," Mark spoke up for himself. "I don't like this defense plan, I don't like biotics, and I don't like damn hot-shot Marines."

"Mark!" Lilith hissed.

"It's alright, ma'am," Kaidan said, feeling weary. He had only just landed and this was his welcoming party. Well, that was typical. Hadn't he just done this about ten times before? All these colonies were starting to look alike. He probably wouldn't be able to remember this one once he was done here. Horizon would be lost to his jumble of memories about the last two years of special assignments.

"'_Ma'am_,' huh?" Mark snorted. "Damn Citadel snob."

"Mark!" Lilith said, a little more loudly.

"Eh, come on then, Marine," Mark said. "I don't like this arrangement, but the lady of the house got this liaison job and it pays the bills when the crops don't."

"I'm sorry, Commander Alenko," Lilith said when Mark turned away. "He's just..."

"It's alright," Kaidan told her. "I get that a lot. He's not attacking me on sight, so that's a start."

"Have people done that?" Lilith asked, horrified.

"One did," Kaidan shrugged his duffel bag onto his shoulder.

"You'd think people would be a little more grateful for a free defense system plus installation and milita training," Lilith said.

"You'd be wrong," Kaidan replied. "I know that people come out to the Terminus Systems to do things their way and they don't like the Alliance checking up on them. I understand the sentiment. But innocent lives still matter to the Alliance, even if those people don't want to live in Council space."

"True enough," Lilith said. "Well, even though they would never admit it, the people of Horizon do need your help. On behalf of the colony, I suppose I should thank you."

* * *

"I suppose I should thank you, Shepard," Aria said, not looking at all pleased. She looked up from the data pad with a frown. "This info may have just saved my life."

"Suppose?" Garrus glared at her from behind Shepard's shoulder. "Guess?"

Shepard shook her head at him. The turian had insisted on coming with her on her second foray onto Omega station. He wanted to be there to help her pick up Professor Mordin Solus. Shepard had waited a day to make sure Garrus was okay, but she had also been itching to get going so that she could pick the salarian up and leave. There were a host of other chores to do around Omega, not the least of which had been delivering this information to Aria here. Shepard had picked up intel thatthe gangs of Omega wanted to take Aria out, and though she really didn't dabble in merc band politics as a rule, she figured that Aria was a more stable form of whatever passed as government here than full out gang war.

Aria's eyes narrowed as she gazed at Shepard. "Here, take these coordinates," she said at last, handing a datapad to Shepard. "It's a little...something for you. A cache of credits. That is, if you want to go pick it up."

"Do you think we're stupid?" Garrus asked at her. "It's obvious that this is a trap."

"I didn't do this for a reward," Shepard said, placing herself between the turian and asari. "Keep your money."

"Well, look at you – so noble," Aria said, looking annoyed. "But I don't like being in people's debt."

"Not my problem," Shepard said. "I'll be going now."

"You should find a nice young man to keep you warm in the meantime," Aria shot back at her. "You look like you need to loosen up."

Shepard glared at the asari, belatedly realizing that the gesture would just add truth to the words.

_If she only knew._

"I'm leaving," Shepard said. Not even checking to make sure Garrus and Kasumi were following her, she wandered down the stairs and continued down to the basement of the club.

_A nice young man..._

_Yeah_, Shepard thought. _That would be great._ The trouble was, she knew exactly which nice young – well, youngish – man she wanted. And sadly, she didn't think she'd just run into him out here in the Terminus Systems the way she had run into Garrus. But if she did, she certainly planned to keep him warm...

Shepard tried to shake the idea from her head as she stepped into the basement of the club. She simply wasn't able to. The pulse of the music in this place was incredible. She could feel it all the way to her feet. And with Aria's words still ringing in her head, she could just imagine...

Her eyes strayed to a dark corner, just beyond the place where an asari danced alone on a table. If Kaidan were here, Shepard thought, if she had him here now...

The music seemed to slip an image into her mind: She would pull Kaidan into one of these dark corners, or maybe he'd shove her up onto one of these tables. He'd be in armor, as would she, but she knew exactly how their suits fit together. She'd detach the waistband, reach inside...

She'd be kissing him; he'd be groaning for her. And as they stood there in the corner, their voices dampened by the pulsing music, their bodies hidden by shadows and armor, she'd take him in hand and stroke him, not stopping until he moaned against her mouth as he found his release. He would sag against her and she would hold him, letting the music fill both of them.

Then it would be her turn.

"Shepard?"

Shepard blinked and realized she was standing stock still in the middle of the bar, just staring at the corner beyond the asari dancer. She turned around to see Garrus looking at her with an expression that could only be described as confused. Kasumi appeared as though she was about to laugh.

"I didn't realize you went for asari, Shepard," Kasumi said, her painted lips quirking in a grin.

"Uh..."

"She doesn't" Garrus said. "Not usually," he added, suddenly looking embarrassed that he had spoken at all.

"I was looking right through her," Shepard said, feeling an uncharacteristic blush creep up her cheeks. "Honestly. My mind was wandering." When the two gave her a doubtful look, she shook her head. "I need a drink." She motioned to the bartender, then grabbed whatever glass he'd set in front of her.

She swallowed it whole. Then she began to choke. Shepard pitched forward, smacked her head against the counter, and passed out.

* * *

"Lemonade?" Lilith asked. Kaidan looked up from the datapads scattered over the table and gave her a weak smile.

"Sure," he said.

"Hmpf," Mark snorted. He looked up from where he was trying to fix the irrigation system parameters with his computer and an omnitool. Kaidan had thought to offer some help, but decided against it. The guy clearly didn't want Kaidan's help with anything.

"So," Lilith said, handing Kaidan a glass and sitting down beside him. "What do you think?"

"This..." he frowned at the datapad before him. "Your colony isn't really well suited for the comm system the Alliance is thinking of. You're down in this valley here, which makes satellite connections problematic. There's something about the upper atmosphere – trace elements that block..."

"So you can't spy on us like you want to?" Mark broke in. "Too damn bad for you."

"Mark," Lilith frowned.

"The atomosphere will block any distress calls," Kaidan told him, "That's not a good situation."

"We don't need to call the Alliance for help," Marks said. "We were doing just fine without you. Damn marines..." He slammed his computer shut and wandered out of the room.

"Mark..." Lilith frowned, looking after her husband, then turned back to Kaidan. She paused, then lowered her voice and leaned forward across the table to say, "He wouldn't want to tell you this, but Mark lost family to batarian raiders. Years ago, his brother and cousins were killed on Mindoir. The Alliance didn't get there in time, and he still blames them."

"I see," Kaidan murmured.

He immediately thought of another person who had lost family on Mindoir. Shepard had been from that colony, but she had turned out so differently. The horror of that sitation had given her drive and compassion, Kaidan thought, not a lingering bitterness. It had led her to join the Alliance, to join her rescuers.

It was funny, Kaidan mused, how the same tragedy could impact two people so differently, could turn them onto completely opposite paths. He supposed that in some ways, the same was true of himself and the attack on the Normandy. His former crewmates had mostly left the Alliance; only he had remained loyal.

"No hard feelings," Kaidan told Lilith, pushing those thoughts aside. When she continued to look doubtful, he added, "I worked with someone who lost family to Mindoir."

"Really?" Lilith blinked.

"Yeah," Kaidan said. He found it odd to talk about Shepard with anyone, least of all a stranger. But Lilith didn't know that he was talking about Shepard, so that made it easier to say:

"She had dealt with Mindoir pretty well, but there were times that you could tell it had changed her. She always wanted to save every colony in the galaxy. She made it her personal goal in life, I think, to set herself up as a shield for the innocent."

"Isn't that why you took this job?" Lilith asked. "To do the same?"

Kaidan paused at that. He had never thought of it that way. "I guess a little," he admitted.

"So what's this girl from Mindoir doing now?" Lilith asked, getting a curious glint in her eye that Kaidan recognized at once. "Is she waiting for you somewhere? Does this mean I won't be able to set you up with my cousin like I planned to?"

"Ah..." Kaidan chuckled, ducking his head, "She...passed on."

"Oh," Lilith blinked. "I'm sorry."

"It's okay," Kaidan assured her. "And anyhow, I'm seeing someone. Sort of."

"It's sort of okay or you're sort of seeing someone?" Lilith asked.

Kaidan laughed. Mark might be a bit of an ass, but this Lilith was alright. "Both, I guess," he said. "So please, no setting me up with anyone. I have a lot of work to do here, and I need to focus."

"Fair enough," Lilith said, turning her attention back to the datapads before them. "I promise to leave you alone. But I can't vouch for everyone else on this colony doing the same."

* * *

"Shepard?" The voice seemed to come from far away. She heard music – pounding music.

"Kaidan?" she murmured.

"Yeah, she's alright," The voice solidified, because Garrus's. He sounded irritable.

"Did she just try to say my name?" Kasumi asked.

"No," Garrus frowning face came into focus above Shepard. His mandibles flared as he spoke. "She said...she's awake. Probably just a little delirious."

"What the hell happened?" Shepard asked.

"The bartender poisoned you," someone said. It was a man who stood nearby, just looking at Shepard with a mixture of amazement and concern. Shepard looked at the stranger in confusion.

"What?" she blinked. "Poisoned?"

"He did it to my buddy a few months back," the man continued. "He's been doing to humans all the time."

"There's some guy poisoning humans in a bar and no one has _done_ anything?" Shepard gaped at him.

"You must be new to Omega," the guy replied.

"People keep telling me that," Shepard murmured. She didn't think of herself as some innocent child, but hell, for all she'd seen out in the galaxy, she'd never seen any place as rough as Omega.

"Never saw anyone live after," the guy was saying. "You're something else, lady."

"Yeah," she snorted as she got to her feet. "Well, that bastard just poisoned the wrong girl."

"Yeah," the stranger said. "Well look, if you're okay, I'll be going now. Don't want to be around if you start shooting people." He left in a hurry.

"You okay, Shepard?" Garrus asked nervously.

"I'm fine," she replied. "Managed not to break the Illusive Man's new toy."

Garrus' brows drew together. "Huh?"

"Me," she said, brushing a hand over her armor. "This body. Cerberus's five-billion credit toy."

"You don't really think of yourself as that, do you?" the turian asked, softly.

"Of course," she shrugged. "That's what I am. But if he tries to mess with me, he'll find out that toy or no, I'm not his puppet. Alright, let's deal with that bartender and find that salarian doctor and... I think I'm forgetting something else we were supposed to do here on Omega..."

Garrus looked at her blankly.

"Oh, right," she snapped her fingers. In her thick gloves, they made no sound. "Power couplings."

"We're going shopping?" Kasumi sounded pleased.

"Yeah, but shooting comes first. Everyone got their guns ready?"

"Always, Shepard," Garrus replied.

"Okay," Shepard nodded. "Let's try this again. Afterlife basement, take two."


	22. Hormones

_Chapter 22_

_(hormones)_

_

* * *

_

Kaidan woke suddenly and found himself staring at the ceiling above. It was an egg-shell colored ceiling, that dingy shade that all pre-fab buildings were made in. A fly buzzed into the shield-window and fell away, stunned by the impact. Morning sunlight streamed into the little room, giving a golden glow to the opposite wall. Outside, the gold-green fields were rustling in the breeze, signaling the changing season from Horizon's summer to fall.

Kaidan barely registered all that. His eyes were fixed on the empty space before him, his mind still caught up in the dream he'd so abruptly woken from.

_Sweat-slicked skin slid against sweat-slicked skin. His mouth trailed kisses down her spine. He gripped her shoulders; she arched her back..._

Kaidan let out a breath.

That had been one hell of a wet dream.

It had been so unbelievably erotic, more so than anything in the last...well, in a while. He had sex dreams often enough, even in the first weeks after Shepard's death. His body, so delighted at finding such a perfect partner, had never gotten the message that said partner had...died. In fact, his body seemed to get ever more insistent for Shepard the longer Kaidan had gone without her.

At first, he'd avoided thinking of her and simply took plenty of cold showers. After a time, he allowed himself to work the problem out in private. That kept him sane, it was true, but it was always...unsatisfying. Apparently, his needs had gotten so tangled up with Shepard that it was difficult not to touch himself and think of her. As a result, he often found himself torn between lust and feelings of guilt and sorrow and even...shame. Shepard was dead, for God's sake, and here he was, still using her memory for his own pleasure. Release often felt hollow.

Still, he did what he could to keep his needs at bay, and sometimes, on some wonderful nights, he'd dream of her and wake to find his body had taken care of itself. There was always a sense of loss afterwards, but for the moment when he was still half awake, it was glorious.

Only last night's dream had been more intense than usual. The love making had gone on and on, starting with teasing foreplay, jumping ahead to the climax and then shifting back again to the beginning. And oddly enough, the woman in the dream had been...faceless.

There had been touching, kisses, bodies melded, the lips searching...

And the woman's face was not Shepard's.

It wasn't anyone's, really. There just hadn't been a face there. The woman had been some empty placeholder for his fantasies.

He wasn't sure if that was a step in the right direction or what, exactly. It was certainly a change. And the dream had left him feeling a little more satisfied this morning than he could remember. Kaidan stretched and sat up. Hell, he'd take it. It was a small thing, but he'd take it.

Now he just needed a shower.

* * *

Shepard stumbled into her room, feeling exhausted.

Worse than that, though, she was really damn horny.

She blamed Afterlife. The music there – the asari dancing in a way she knew that Kaidan would have approved of and that she wanted to learn to do herself, the people making out in every corner - it had all fueled this primal instinct in her. She was having one of those days, she realized, one of those days when her libido just was raging out of control.

In the past, she'd ignored days like this or, if things got bad, she found a way to get a moment alone and take care of herself. That wasn't always easy on a ship with hot-bunking sleeper pods, but there had always been the showers. Only here she was, in the so-called 'privacy' of her own room, and she knew she was being watched. She wondered if there were monitoring devices in her private shower, too. Maybe she should ask EDI. The idea of being watched while clinically cleaning oneself and the idea of being watched by the Illusive Man while doing something else entirely was just...sick.

Shepard scowled and stripped her armor off. This was going to drive her nuts. Being watched was bad enough, but if she was going to have to go without any relief for who knew how long, well, she was going to get bitchy really fast.

Not that she wasn't feeling bitchy already. She'd been on edge the whole time on Omega. She supposed she owed Garrus an apology for being so short with him. She'd sent him back to the ship, not wanting him in a plague zone if the plague affected non-humans only. She hadn't been terribly nice about it. She'd bitten Miranda's head off more than once. Kasumi had avoided it all only because the thief was smart enough to stay out of her way. That new crew member of theirs, the salarian, had avoided her temper. He had amused her right from the start, even with his unending chatter. His enthusiasm for an intellectual challenge spoke to her. His need to help people - even when that meant making hard decisions - resonated for her. And best of all, he joined her for his own amusement and curiosity, none of which had to do with big Cerberus bucks. She liked that. He and Garrus were the only two who hadn't signed on for the pay. For that alone, she decided that she'd be keeping those two close.

In fact, she'd brought Garrus and Mordin with her when she did her last run of errands around Omega. Unfortunately, the exercise had just worn her already thin patience down to the thread. Running around in the dark underbelly of Omega had pissed her off again. The people here lived in filth. She had saved one quarian kid from it all by paying for his way out of here, but it seemed such a small thing against the squalor. She'd helped some krogan keep himself alive, but in doing so, she realized she'd pissed off Aria and possibly upset the power balance of Omega. Not that she really gave a damn, but it was annoying the way that one good deed had probably sparked all sorts of messy repercussions.

She felt that buzzing in her head again, behind her right ear, it seemed like. She shook her head, but the feeling wouldn't go away. Neither would the feeling of frustrated disgust.

It was days like these that she wondered what the hell she'd been trying to save when she took down Sovereign. Omega couldn't be any worse off if it just blew up, she thought disgustedly. Slavers, mercs – she was beginning to see why Garrus had taken them on all by himself.

Shepard stepped out of her tight, sweat wicking undergarments and tossed them into the laundry chute. She was now down to her lacy underwear. It was the least prissy pair that she had. Everything else had bows on it, she thought with a frown. They were small bows, but bows nonetheless. Shepard knew because she'd gone through the drawer trying to find something simple. Too bad Miranda's taste had been anything but.

Shepard hadn't been able to go shopping for personal clothes on Omega – not that she'd let any of that stuff near her body. Even the sniper headgear she'd let Garrus talk her into buying would have to be sent through decontamination ten times before she'd put it on. She didn't trust that dirty elcor merchant one bit.

With a sigh, she flopped onto her back and stared up at the ceiling. She was so tense just now. She was fully aware that a certain Illusive Man was watching, even now. Or at least, he had footage of her and could view it any time he wanted. Her mouth thinned into a hard line. Just knowing that made her feel both more pent up and less able to even think about helping herself to realease.

Well, damn, she thought, sitting up quickly and grabbing a robe from the closet. She might as well take a shower – a really cold one. Too bad she'd be feeling too antsy to really kick back and enjoy it.

* * *

Down in the tech lab, Professor Mordin Solus smiled to himself as snapped another surveillance device in half. This place would do nicely, he thought. He just had to re-calibrate the computer interface, take out the rest of the monitoring devices – and they might be hard to find. Still, he had to take them out. He simply couldn't work with people watching over his shoulder. Though the AI was helpful, yes. This would be a nice change, a very nice change. He would have to thank Shepard when next he saw her.

Shepard. His lower eyelid narrowed over his bulging eyes. Yes, Shepard was unexpected. Cerberus he knew of, had monitored. Shepard, however, he knew only by reputation. That reputation had not prepared him for the human he had met. She was smart, which surprised him. He had expected the – charisma, as humans called it. He expected the skill with the gun. It was why he'd handed her the hand cannon he found. He was pleased to hear she'd used it well.

But no, she'd been smart, and cunning. And she was idealistic at the core. That was unexpected. She wasn't as naïve as his assistant, he could see that, but she'd saved lives when she didn't have to, even lives that were not so worth saving.

Idealistic, yes. A frown crossed his face as he wondered what she'd say if she knew some of his past actions. She seemed like someone who could understand a hard decision, but then, humans were often surprising. He hoped she would be able to understand. He hadn't yet decided if he should tell her. After all, he was beginning to like this place, beginning to like being a part of this project. The idea of learning about the Collectors was appealing. It was a task no one of his academic acquaintance had taken on. And he found he looked forward to working with Shepard. He did not often work with humans, and this would give him a chance to observe one of their finest soldiers.

He did wonder at her tension, though. She had seemed to grow apprehensive during their return to the ship. If he understood the readings he had furtively taken from her with his omnitool, it seemed that her hormone levels were increased, and not simply because of the adrenaline rush of fighting all day long. Being a non-hormonal species himself, he wondered at it. Perhaps she was going through a monthly pre-mating cycle?

He would have to ask her about it next time he spoke with her. After all, his job here, as he saw it, was to help keep the crew at their best.


	23. Progeny and Surveillance

_Chapter 23_

_(Progeny and Surveillance, or Mordin)_

_**Note:** Thank you to all those of you who review my stories. I love reviews - love, love, love them. I seriously read and re-read, and re-read them. Thank you, thank you._

_Reviews also are nice when I put in chapters where I wonder...hm... Too much? I was a little worried about going into detail about Kyrie's...ah...needs. Again, personal smut and all, but hey, it's true of her, and you can't blame the girl for those times. Or Kaidan either, right? Sheesh, when they're APART the whole dang time... (Grumbles about Mass Effect 3 being too far off.)_

_Also, your reviews inspire me with great ideas. I honestly had not planned much for Mordin, but based on the feedback, I realized I needed to follow up with, well, a little "talk"..._

_

* * *

_

"Am I _what?"_ Shepard gaped at the salarian. Mordin blinked his large eyes at her.

"Something wrong?" he asked.

"I..." Shepard's first instinct was to grab the alien's thin throat and squeeze. But that bloodthirsty notion was cut short by the genuine innocence of the question. Her fingers curled into fists, and she forced herself to be calm as she said:

"Mordin, you do not – ever - ask a human female if she is having PMS."

"PM...?"

"Pre-menstrual syndrome," Shepard said, rubbing her eyes. "You just don't ask about it. Especially armed females."

"Have no gun," he pointed out.

"I'm a biotic," she reminded him.

"Yes," he nodded. "Understand now. Hormonal reaction at this time of month makes you unstable."

"Yeah," she said through gritted teeth, "it does."

"Can help with that," Mordin told her.

"Ah," Shepard coughed. "How, exactly?"

"Advice, medicine," Mordin replied. "Could work out tension sexually. Not together," he added, not appearing at all embarrased, just seeking to clarify. "Not me. Salarians non-hormonal species. Non-mammalian. You understand. But alone - or with mammalian partner. Several potential partners on this ship..."

"No," Shepard said, more quickly than she meant to. "No, no." She shook her head. "Just...no."

"Prudish behavior," Mordin said, his eyes taking her in with a clinical air. "Surprising, given hormone levels."

"It's not... I have...someone." She frowned at him. "It's none of your business, frankly."

"No intention to offend," Mordin replied. "If existing possessive, hormonal-based pairing with absent partner causing tendency to abstinence out of sense of fidelity, can find another solution. Masturba..."

"Mordin!" Shepard cut him off. "Just...please. Leave my sex life out of this. Or lack thereof, as the case may be."

"Need to be in best shape for mission," Mordin replied, his great eyes blinking at her. "Need to take care of self, physically."

"I can deal," she said wearily. "I have before. It will pass."

"But, hormone levels high," he told her. He tapped on his omnitool. Shepard frowned slightly as he waved it in front of her. "As I thought," he said. "Ovulation cycle at peak. Pre-mating hormones..."

"What?" Shepard blinked at him. "I'm actually..." She broke off as the implications hit her. "Shit. I'm fertile?"

Mordin nodded as he let the omnitool flicker away. "Reproductive organs fully functioning. Cellular breakdown appears to have been reversed. Unclear if ovum have sustained lasting damage. Could run in depth analysis..."

"That's not necessary," she told him. "Not...now, anyway."

Mordin nodded. "Have analyzed data from Project Lazarus," he told her. "Incredible work. Impressed humans have such advanced technology."

"Yeah," Shepard said absently. But her mind was somewhere else entirely. Until now, she hadn't really thought about...this. She had just assumed that Cerberus had brought her back as a weapon, just a mind full of memories with a fancy body to go with it. But if they had brought her back entirely...

Then what? She asked herself. She had given up on a normal life long ago. Though a part of her wondered what she would have been like if her life had progressed normally – well, normally for a conservative colony kid – she really hadn't let herself think about family. She didn't even know if she wanted one. But if the possibility still existed that she could...

"I wonder why they bothered," she murmured.

"Many possibilities," Mordin offered. "Need all systems working for proper health? Want hormonal systems functioning properly? Could be..."

"That's okay, Mordin," Shepard said, cutting him off. "I'll ask Officer Lawson. She must know why."

Mordin nodded. "Yes," he said. "In meantime, should probably begin regimin of contraceptives. If you wish to set aside prudish assumptions and relieve tension..."

"I won't," Shepard said hastily. "But yeah, have you got something to take the edge off of this...ah...monthly condition?"

Mordin nodded, apparently pleased that she had asked for his advice. "Have extensive knowledge of human medicine," he told her proudly. "Can suggest several..."

"Just give me the standard Alliance menstruation-suppression shot," she told him. No sense in worrying about all that while out on this crazy mission. She probably missed the boat for this month, but that would be one less thing on her mind going forward.

"Do not have such medicine here," Mordin told her. "Doctor Chakwas, however..."

"Of course," Shepard nodded. "Yeah. I completely forgot about all this. And I have something for her," Shepard added, remembering the bottle of brandy she'd picked up on Omega as a gift for her old friend. "Anything else you need, Mordin?" she added, remembering the reason that she'd come in here before the salarian had hit her with his bizarre questions. "Is the lab working well for you?"

"Quite satisfactory," he replied, turning his attention back to the computer in front of him. "Found a few surveillance bugs." He chuckled at that. Shepard nodded grimly.

"Destroyed most of them," he went on. "Returned expensive one to Miranda."

"Wait," Shepard blinked. "What?"

"Nothing unexpected," he went on. "Just need more samples. More Collector data..."

"Go back," Shepard told him. The alien looked up in surprise. "You found and disabled the bugs in here?"

"Most of them," he told her. "Wanted some help from the AI, so left a few..."

"No one said anything?"

"Miranda did not seem pleased," Mordin admitted, "But did not object..."

"Keep destroying them," Shepard told him, starting to grin. "Any that you can find. And if you could..." She wrinkled her nose and then said, "I can't stand the idea of being watched. Could you come remove any devices you can find from my private quarters? And my...shower."

"Will gladly clear room," Mordin told her. "But are no devices in the showers. Asked AI. Even salarians have modesty regarding recording devices."

She let her eyes slide shut for a moment and let out a breath. "Thank you, Jesus," she murmured.

"Illusive Man not interested in..." Mordin began.

"Hey, I didn't know what the guy was interested in," Shepard said with a shrug, feeling a little silly now. "Just...I want the devices gone. As many as you can find."

"Illusive Man may disapprove," Mordin observed. "And need to leave some so that EDI..."

"Then he shouldn't have put me in charge," Shepard said, standing a little straighter. "Take them out. Leave the ones in the public rooms so EDI can communicate with us, but take out everything in the private quarters – especially _my_ private quarters."

"Very well," Mordin said, nodding. "But some devices may be difficult to find. May have technology that defies detection, and software surveillance on personal email messages..."

"Just do what you can," Shepard told him. "EDI can monitor the hallways, that's fine. And the comm room. But she doesn't need to see me sleeping. Neither does the Illusive prick." She turned to go, then she stopped.

"Thanks Mordin," she said, smiling wryly. "You're not quite what I expected, but I appreciate the talk."

"Anytime," he replied.

Shepard nodded and headed straight for the elevator. She needed to talk to Miranda and make a stop by the medbay, and she probably should check in on Kasumi and Zaeed at some point – Garrus, too, she realized belatedly.

But first, she really needed another shower.

* * *

It had been a long day. Kaidan sighed as he stumbled up the back stairs of Lilith and Mark's pre-fab house. He had spent all morning surveying the land where the towers would be built and all afternoon trying to figure out how to deal with Horizon's radio-wave-defying atmosphere. He didn't even bother to take off his armor as he headed straight for the kitchen. He hoped Lilith wouldn't mind if he raided the cupboards. He was famished.

Kaidan walked into the room to find Mark alone at the kitchen table. Mark looked up from his drink as Kaidan walked in. It looked like it had been a long day for the farmer, as well. He was covered in dirt the way that one can only get when working and sweating all day in a dusty field. Kaidan had seen enough colonies by now to know that kind of work well.

"Mind if I get myself something to eat?" Kaidan asked him.

"Dinner's in the fridge," Mark told him. "Lilith has a meeting tonight. Said she'd be back late."

Kaidan gave the man a grateful look. "Thanks," he said. He got his meal out and didn't even bother to warm it up. He sat down and began to eat as he usually ate: ravenously.

"Biotics, huh?" Mark said, his eyes narrowing. "I'd heard that you have to eat a lot, but damn."

"Sorry," Kaidan said, making an effort to slow down. "It's just that..."

"Lilith's a good cook," Mark said, knowingly. "And she likes that you eat everything she puts in front of you."

"Oh," Kaidan said, not sure if this put him in good stead with Mark or not.

The two men fell into silence, Kaidan eating and Mark just staring into space with a drink in his hand. Suddenly, Mark looked up at Kaidan and asked:

"You married?"

"No," Kaidan replied. He willed his mind not to follow that question to sorrowful reflections on what might have been.

"You got kids?"

"No," Kaidan said again, thinking that it was a rather strange order in which to ask those questions.

"You straight?"

Kaidan choked a little as he began to laugh. "Yeah," he said, chuckling. "I'm straight."

"Huh," Mark said. His face remained impassive as he went back to his drink.

"Is there some reason why you asked?" Kaidan wanted to know. He wasn't offended, really, just curious. Maybe this was why the guy hadn't liked him. On Earth, homosexuality was considered normal, but the colonies tended to be a little old-fashioned.

"Just wondering," Mark said with a shrug. "Couldn't tell."

"You couldn't tell that I was straight?" Kaidan asked. "Really?"

"Well, there's your hair," Mark said, giving the top of Kaidan's head a pointed glance.

"What's wrong with it?" Kaidan wondered, running a hand through his hair self-conciously. He had never noticed anything wrong with it. It fit regs and it seemed to suit him, he thought. Shepard had never complained.

"Eh," Mark shrugged again and failed to elaborate. "Plus there's your armor."

"What about the armor?" Kaidan asked, glancing down at the suit. The upgrade to the Onyx included a lighted shield interface that better synched with his own biotic barriers. He hadn't thought much about the appearance. It wasn't bright pink, like his last suit of armor. That was all he cared about.

Mark looked Kaidan over and made a face. "Let's just say that a lot of folks on this colony have been watchin' you workin' in that armor," he said. "Not all of them are female."

"Does this include you?" Kaidan asked him.

"Shit no," Mark said, making a face. "Not that I have a problem with guys who..." he added, quickly. "Just..." He shrugged. "Shit."

"I'm straight," Kaidan told him. "Doesn't matter to me if other people aren't."

The farmer watched Kaidan through narrowed eyes and then nodded.

"Want a drink?" he asked.

"Sure," Kaidan replied. He didn't know how it had happened, but clearly he'd passed some sort of test. He wasn't sure if he felt honored or not.

"Whiskey," Mark told him, pouring him a shot. "May not be the fanciest drink in the world, but it works for me."

"Works for me, too," Kaidan replied. He took the offered shot glass and held it up to the light of the evening sunset. "Cheers."

* * *

Shepard stumbled into the elevator and hit the button. The evening had gone much better than the morning. She'd taken a shower - a private shower, thank God. Then she'd stopped to get something to eat, and damn it if Rupert wasn't getting better at cooking with each day. She'd had some coffee, too, though the hour was getting late, then stopped to check in with Miranda.

The Cerberus officer had been snippy, to say the least. The woman had told Shepard that yes, in fact, they had brought _all_ of her body back. Uncertain of what systems could be left out of the equation without upsetting others, they'd fixed everything. Like Mordin, Miranda was unsure of the extent of the trauma sustained to specific cells. She suspected that cellular breakdown had been reversed, but there really was no way to tell unless Shepard actually tried to...

Hell, if she ever got that far, Shepard told Miranda, she'd worry about it then. She didn't want to dwell on the topic more than she had to. She wasn't sure if she ever wanted to test out the extent of her body's reproductive abilities.

So Shepard had promptly gone off to the medbay to make sure she had her contraceptive shot for the next six months. She wasn't sure if she would need it - it sort of depended on how soon she managed to get in touch with Kaidan. But there was no sense in being stupid - or in dealing with tampons and the like if she could avoid it.

She used the opportunity to bring Doctor Chakwas the gift of a bottle of Serrice Ice Brandy. It was just like the one the doctor had lost when the old Normandy went down. Chakwas had, rather uncharacteristically, opened the bottle up right then and there. Shepard couldn't say no to the offered drink, so they'd shared one glass, then another, then another until the bottle was empty.

And now Shepard was stumbling back to her quarters, simply, happily _drunk_.

No, not quite drunk, she thought with a smile. Just good and buzzed. The new biotic implants and her new body were burning through the booze quickly. It was a pleasant feeling. And the warmth of having re-connected with Doctor Chakwas had her feeling even better. She and Chakwas had toasted everyone they'd known and everything in the traverse. The doctor had regaled Shepard with stories about the people on the old Normandy. Shepard didn't realize the doctor had seen or overheard so much, hiding out down in the medbay as she had. Most of the stories had been about Kaidan and Joker and Jenkins, which amused Shepard no end. She had no idea that Chakwas was so much fun. She'd have to go visit the medbay more often.

Then, just before the doctor had passed out, Shepard had heard Chakwas murmur:

_Ah, Shepard, our immovable center. A place where a person can stop and catch her breath._

Immovable center? Shepard chuckled. She wasn't feeling so immovable right now. More like a weather vane, blowing any which way Cerberus pushed her. But Chakwas' vote of confidence meant the world to her. It was moments like these, when people showed their absolute trust in her, that made her feel a little less alone. They made her feel like living up to that trust. She could use all the friends she could get right now, and all the trust in the galaxy.

When the elevator reached her quarters, Shepard walked through the doors feeling delightfully fuzzy-headed. She glanced at her desk and smiled.

_Kaidan_.

She sighed and dropped into the chair. She gazed at the picture that flickered to life before her and only just stopped short of touching it.

Talk about an immovable center. Kaidan had always trusted her, always had her back. He had been there for her before she'd even asked for it, before she even realized how much she needed him. She was someone who had once prided herself on not needing anyone, but she had to admit that she needed Kaidan.

Now, if only she could find him.

Shepard glanced to her personal computer. Once again, she considered trying to contact him via email. He might still be checking his old account...

But, no, she thought, she couldn't risk it, at least not until she had disabled all monitoring devices on the ship and in her personal software. Perhaps Ceberus didn't know what Kaidan was to her. If they didn't, she wanted to keep it that way. She still felt certain that her new Cerberus "allies" would use anyone and everyone they could to bring her to heel if they could.

Shepard winced as a headache began inside of her skull, just behind her right ear.

Ooh, so there was the downside of drinking half a bottle of brandy, right there. Her new implants were certainly touchy these days. They were giving her headaches fairly often. It didn't help that this damn room had such garish lighting. She could sympathize with Kaidan, now. His migrianes had been worse than these buzzing headaches, though. She still couldn't imagine what he'd gone through all those years. Her immovable center, indeed.

Shepard wandered down the stairs to her bed and flopped onto her back.

_Kaidan, _she thought as her eyes drifted shut.

She would find him again. She would. And when she did, she would hold onto that immovable center of hers and never him let go.

* * *

"Status update."

"Shepard is disabling the monitoring devices in her personal quarters," Miranda said, the worry in her voice echoing in the large, empty comm room. "Professor Solus is helping her. At this rate, only the common areas will be under surveillance."

"Don't worry," the Illusive Man blew out a puff of smoke. In the hologram before Miranda, it appeared as a pixilated cloud before it faded away. "She's left more than enough for me to keep an eye on things."

He smiled, and Miranda shivered a little.

Keep an eye on things, indeed. How was it that Miranda had never been bothered by those eyes of his before? She had noticed the glowing cybernetic pupils, of course. She had seen them the first time she had met the Illusive Man. But had they always looked so...eerie?

Before this mission, Miranda had never questioned the Illusive Man's appearance, never questioned _him_. But somehow, Shepard had introducted a doubt into her mind about the Illusive Man, and Miranda just couldn't shake it:

_How can you be so sure of him when you know so little about him?_

Miranda frowned. How had Shepard managed to slip that uncertainty into her mind?

Maybe it was Shepard's whole-hearted devotion to the cause of saving those lost colonies. Shepard was helping Cerberus with their mission, but operating by her own methods and ideology. And yet, she'd been as effective as Cerberus had been in the past - perhaps more so.

In Miranda's experience, there were only two kinds of people in the galaxy: idealists, and those who got things done. Shepard, strangely, was both. Miranda really didn't know what to make of it. She had grudgingly come to admire Shepard, which was...strange. Shepard was not at all the kind of woman Miranda would have spoken to given a choice. Then again, Miranda didn't speak with many women given the choice. She wasn't sure why that was. It just...was.

"Shepard also asked about her..." Miranda broke off, uncertain how to finish the sentence.

"Ability to have children at a later date?" the Illusive Man finished for her. "I know."

Miranda blinked. After all this time, she knew that the Illusive Man was aware of intel long before she was, but it never failed to surprise her. Yet now, for the first time, she also found it unsettling.

"I wanted to leave that possibility open," the Illusive Man told her. "I don't know what – if anything – will come of it. But should Shepard find a partner..." He shrugged.

"Are you planning something?" Miranda asked, feeling vaguely disturbed.

"Not at all." The Illusive Man tapped some ash from the end of his cigarette. "I merely had Wilson clone all of her reproductive cells. Sadly, those samples were destroyed in the attack on the Lazarus station. But there are still the cells inside of her."

Miranda felt as if the floor had dropped out from under her. "I was unaware of this," she said, astonished. "I thought Wilson never worked on Shepard when I was not present."

"He didn't harm her," the Illusive Man assured her. "Or do anything...untoward. I made sure of that."

"Then why wasn't I involved?" Miranda asked, taking a step forward. "Why did you keep me in the dark...?"

"I have my reasons," the Illusive Man told her, his voice sharp. Miranda's mouth snapped shut, but her eyes narrowed.

"Shepard was not harmed," the Illusive Man said again. "I wanted to keep as much DNA data as I could, in case something were to happen and we had to grow a clone of her – or grow a child."

"You would have harvested her body for...genetic data?" Miranda asked, her voice dropping to a near whisper.

"I wanted to bring Shepard back," the Illusive Man said, coldly. "And we did. I had contingency plans, however." He leaned back in his chair and took a drag off of his cigarette. "As you know, Miranda, I always have contingency plans." He blew out a line of smoke.

"Of course," Miranda said. She told herself it made sense. She reminded herself that the Illusive Man had not harmed Shepard.

But still, it bothered her.

_Why should I care?_ Miranda wondered. Shepard was not her friend. The commander scarcely trusted Miranda, and heaven knows Miranda did not trust Shepard.

But, Miranda thought, no one should be genetically modified without their consent.

_Then why did you do it to Shepard?_ she asked herself. Miranda frowned. She knew the reasons why, the reasons the Illusive Man had given to her, the reasons she had given herself. Yet now, even with those reasons, she wasn't quite sure how to answer that question any more.

Miranda took a deep breath and squared her shoulders.

"Very well," she said. "Shall I install new monitoring devices to replace the old?"

"Don't worry," the Illusive Man said. "EDI has ways of getting around the blinds spots and reporting back to me. There are...emails, after all. You just focus on helping Shepard recruit the team she needs. You have a lot of work to do, yet, Miranda."


	24. Alone

_Chapert 24_

_(Alone)_

_

* * *

_

"Hello, commander."

Shepard was striding across the crew deck, but stopped short at the sound of her name. She turned suddenly, then smiled at the sight of Doctor Chakwas. The doctor was sitting in the mess hall, a cup of hot tea on the table before her.

"Doctor," Shepard said, walking over to stand beside her. "Good to see you up and about."

"Ah, yes," the doctor shifted in her seat, looking a little embarrassed. "About yesterday... I enjoyed the brandy. But hope I wasn't...too unprofessional."

"It was nice to see you let your hair down," Shepard said, smiling.

"I didn't realize how much those feelings needed airing," Chakwas said, sadly. "I appreciated the talk. But I didn't get a chance to let you vent. How are you doing, Shepard?"

Shepard thought about that for a moment. She shifted the helmet under her arm from one side to the other, then said, "There are a lot of colonists out there depending on us. They may not know it yet, but they are. We won't let them down."

The doctor blinked at her, then chuckled and shook her head. "They just don't make them like you anymore, Shepard," she said. "What you went through would have changed most people. But not you, I see. Promise me that we'll have a bottle of brandy together every year."

"Done," Shepard agreed. "Every year. As long as we're both around to enjoy it."

"Is someone drinking and not inviting me?" a familiar voice asked. Shepard turned to see Garrus walk into the mess to join them.

"Not this drink, I'm afraid," she said with a small smile. "We're talking about a girl's night out, here. Or a girl's night in, rather."

"The brandy wouldn't have treated you well anyhow, I'm afraid," Doctor Chakwas added. "It scarcely treated _me_ well."

Garrus nodded and gave the doctor a fanged turian smile. Then he looked at Shepard with a sudden drooping of his mandibles.

"Why are you dripping wet?" he asked.

"Huh?" Shepard looked down and brushed a hand over her armor. The joints of heavy sythetic fabric were soaked. She was leaving a small puddle on the floor where she stood. "I didn't notice," she said. "I guess I was too busy coming down to check on you."

"On me?" Garrus blinked in surprise.

"I've been a little busy at the helm these past few days," she said. "But I wanted to see how you were settling in. The crew treating you okay?"

"Yeah," Garrus said, cocking his head. "At least, everyone is polite. Being part of the team that took down Saren helped, I think. Don't worry commander, we're all working together."

"Well," Shepard shrugged. "Cerberus was anti-alien in the past. I just wanted to make sure they weren't tempting your wrath."

"No wrath tempting here," Garrus assured her with a laugh.

"If you two will excuse me," Chakwas said, rising, "I need to get back to work. It was good to see you, Shepard."

"Thanks for the brandy, doctor," Shepard replied with a nod. "We'll have to do that again sometime."

"Commander," Chakwas said, walking away with her dishes in hand. Shepard turned to Garrus.

"So where have you set yourself up down here, Garrus?" she asked.

"Over in the forward battery," Garrus told her, pointing down the hall. He headed in that direction and Shepard began to follow him. She realized belatedly that she was leaving a trail of footprints along the deck. "Rupert will love that," she muttered, looking back a them.

"So what happened to you, Shepard?" Garrus asked her.

"I went planet-side," she told Garrus, turning her attention back to the turian as they reached the door that led to the weapons systems. The door remained open to the crew deck and Garrus walked in to check on the systems panel. Shepard found a seat on a nearby crate of ammo. It was well-sealed, so she didn't worry about dripping all over it.

"There was a lot of snow down there, I guess," she said. "I didn't realize how much of it got into my suit."

"What planet were you...?" Garrus frowned. "Not...Alchera?"

"Yeah," Shepard replied. "Found my old helmet." She held it up for him to see, then set in on her lap. "Can't believe I lost this thing and yet they still managed to bring me back. I don't even want to know what my head looked like."

She shuddered, then ran a hand over her head. Her hair had started to grow back a little, turning from copper to gold at the tips.

Garrus just stared at her, his mouth hanging open.

"So I just handed twenty dog tags off to Joker," Shepard continued. "Took me a bit of searching to track them all down. We'll drop them off at the next major outpost and have them sent back to the Alliance." She frowned a little as she added, "That ought to help some grieving families - a little."

"Wait," Garrus said, shaking his head. "The _Alliance_ asked you for help?"

"Hackett, if you can believe it," Shepard said with a laugh. "I know, right? They don't believe me about the Reapers and they practically threw me back to Cerberus. You should have seen it, Garrus."

"I can imagine," he muttered, mandibles flaring. "I was on the Citadel for a while before I got sick of their...smear campaign against you."

"Yeah," she said, shaking her head. "The Alliance can't be bothered to help me, but Hackett is still asking me for favors." She laughed bitterly. "You'd think they didn't have anyone else who could get anything done, the way they keep sending me assignments."

"So they sent you to look through the wreckage of the old Normandy for...what do you call them? Pet tags?" Garrus asked, incredulously.

"Dog tags," she corrected, stifling a laugh. "They asked me to leave a monument there. Not that anyone would see it. It's not exactly a tourist destination. Still," She shrugged. "I put it by Ashley's old gunnery station. The place was torn up really bad, but I recognized that part of the ship all the same."

"Ashley..." Garrus said, sadly.

"I miss her, too," Shepard said with a sigh. "I wish she was here right about now. Her humor is sadly missed." She stared off into space.

"It hasn't been that long for me, Garrus," she said after a moment. "Its like it was just a few weeks ago that I overheard Crosby and Lowe checking out Ashley's ass." She laughed, but the sound was sad and hollow. "I didn't even know Lowe was into humans until that day. I thought she exclusively had a thing for asari. I know she was after Liara..." She trailed off with a frown. "Poor girl. Joker said she died trying to save Presley."

Garrus watched her for a moment, then asked, "So what was it like down there?"

"Torn up really bad," Shepard said. "The glacier had shifted, crushing most of what hadn't been ripped up in the crash. Don't know how long that monument I put up will last. You know, I almost considered putting it by the Mako."

"The Mako was down there?" Garrus asked.

"Completely unharmed, you'll be happy to hear. Landed on it's feet, as always. But don't be getting any ideas," she added, warningly. "We're not bringing it with us. I always hated that thing."

"I did too," Garrus told her, grinning a little. "When _you_ were driving, anyway."

"Oh, ouch," Shepard said, wincing. "Lucky for you, Garrus, I'm too tired to come over there and kick your turian ass for questioning my driving."

"You're welcome to try," Garrus replied, folding his arms over his chest. "Anytime."

"Maybe later," Shepard said. "Like I said, I'm too tired."

Garrus shifted a little and looked away. He then looked back at Shepard, paused a moment and then said lightly, "So, who did you bring on your ground team? Lawson? Kasumi?"

"Huh?" Shepard blinked and looked up.

"I just ask because I was hoping to be in your squad again," Garrus said. "Not that I like being shot at," he added quickly, "but you did say you wanted me to watch your back."

"I do," Shepard assured him. "I want you to come with me when we go pick up that convict for sure. I don't like the sound of that dossier at all, but I'm willing to check it out." She smiled up at him weakly. "I want a former police officer with me if I'm wandering into a jail to pick up a felon."

"Fair enough," Garrus said, nodding with satisfaction. "So, who did you bring with you to Alchera?"

"Oh," Shepard shrugged. "Nobody."

"Nobody?" Garrus frowned.

"I went alone."

"You went alone?" Garrus took a step towards her and his voice rose a notch. "You went _alone_ to an uncharted world to search through debris on the _ice_?"

"I was fine," Shepard said. She shifted her old N7 helmet from knee to the other. "It was quite peaceful down there, actually."

"There might have been trouble," Garrus said. "You should have brought someone. You should have brought me."

"You hate the cold," Shepard reminded him.

"I still would have come."

"You would have complained the whole time."

Garrus opened his mouth, then paused. "Maybe," he said.

"Garrus," Shepard said, chuckling. "It wasn't personal."

"No, it was stupid. You _died_ on that planet."

"Technically, I died near it. I just fell onto it once I was dead."

The turian's mandibles flared. "You think that's funny, do you?"

"Don't you?" she asked. "The ice maiden dies on an ice planet?" When Garrus turned his head away as though he was angry, she tried to catch his gaze. "Garrus, come on. It's that human thing, remember? We joke about stuff that bothers us. At least, I do."

Garrus snorted.

"I was fine," she assured him. "Besides, I needed to do this alone."

Her words seemed to give him pause. "Why alone?"

"Because..." she let out a heavy sigh and shrugged her shoulders. "Because the Normandy was home for me. I hadn't had a home in a long time and that ship – became home. It was more because of the people – I realize that now, having walked among the wreckage – but I needed to say good-bye to the ship all the same."

"Most of those people are gone," Garrus said, his voice low.

"I know. The bodies were well preserved by the ice..." She trailed off and shivered. "It was a hell of a burial ground, but at least I found those dog tags."

"That's not what I meant," Garrus shook his head. "I didn't mean to ask about..." He broke off and tried again. "I meant the living crew. They're even more scattered than that wreckage was. They've all disappeared."

"You're here with me." She half smiled at him. Garrus stiffened and gazed back at her. "And Joker," she went on. "And Chakwas. So there's a start."

"But not Alenko," Garrus said. His voice had a brittle edge to it.

"No, not yet," Shepard agreed. "But we can hope, right? It would be nice to have our old squad back. You, me, and Kaidan were a hell of a team. Having him with us on Omega would have been useful, I tell you what. If we'd had him with us in your base, we might have been able to save your face."She grinned at Garrus teasingly, then broke off when she heard him growling, actually growling a little in the back of his throat. "Garrus?" she blinked. "Are you okay?"

"He's not here, Shepard," Garrus snapped, fixing his small eyes on her face.

"No," she said, taken aback. "He's not. Hey, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to pick on you about your scars. I like you this way. You look distinguished."

Garrus shook his head. Shepard watched him closely. "Hey," she said. She stood, crossed to him and laid a hand on his shoulder. Garrus flinched, but did not pull away.

"I thought you'd prefer the truth to some bull about how your scars were nothing," she said. "I'm not one to talk about scars, though. Seriously. Look at my face."

Garrus did. He raised his eyes to hers. In their bright blue depths, Shepard saw...hurt?

"Garrus," she murmured. "What happened to you on Omega?"

The turian made a disgusted sort of laugh and turned away.

"Garrus," she pressed, "You promised that you'd tell me what happened. I still want to hear about it." When he did not answer, she added, softly, "Will you tell me?"

Garrus looked down the length of the battery guns, then back at her. "You really want to hear about all that, Shepard?" he asked her.

"I do," Shepard said, leaning against the railings.

Garrus sighed. Then lifted up his head and he told her.

* * *

Kaidan looked down at his plate. Talk about awkward silences.

Kaidan wished that Lilith hadn't invited Mark's cousin over for dinner. Delan was as chatty as Mark was the silent type. But unlike Mark, Delan hadn't warmed to Kaidan at all, nor had he turned out to be decent under his rough exterior. The man had come late, complained about the food, insulted Kaidan at least ten times already, and even Lilith's generous offerings of more herbed potatoes had failed to revive anything resembling a civil dinner conversation.

"So," Lilth said after a sufficiently long pause. "How did work go for you today, commander?"

"Well enough," Kaidan replied, "I think I've isolated the problem with the atmosphere interference, but it will take a lot of calibrating the defese grids working properly. We'll have to get it all installed and then test it extensively to make sure it works. We may be off the network for a long time still."

"Shouldn't you have done that calibratin' and stuff before you came here?" Delan snorted. He took a swig of the beer he had pilfered from the fridge and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

"Every colony is different," Kaidan told him. "That's why they send me and not just a bunch of tech in a box."

"Peh," Delan said, taking another helping of potatoes and smothering them with ketchup. "Damn Alliance. Any excuse to get their own in here to spy for them..."

"Delan!" Lilith said, frowning at him.

"I came out here to get away from these jerks," Delan went on, "but they keep hounding us."

"You do realize," Lilith pointed out, "That the Alliance is just _giving _these towers to us? They're trying to _protect _us."

"They're wasting tax-payer money to do it," Delan said, spearing his food. "Damn fascists."

Kaidan took a bite and said nothing. Delan was right about one thing. The Council _was_ spending tax-payer money on these towers – and that why his mission here was classified. If it got out that the Alliance was spending money to protect colonies out in the Terminus Systems – colonies that did _not_ pay taxes, well, the tax-paying humans in Council space would be enraged.

The Alliance was in a difficult spot, however, and Kaidan understood that. On the one hand, the Alliance didn't want to spend their money on projects that could raise protests. On the other hand, having human colonies go missing – even colonies outside official Alliance jurisdiction – could make humanity look weak. And Kaidan knew that the Alliance needed humanity to remain strong just now. If batarian raiders or merc bands decided humans were fair game because of a few lost colonies, that could spell trouble for the whole human race. But, of course, these counter-attack measures had to be done quietly. Hence the reason why he was heading it all up – alone.

"Hell," Delan said, "The Alliance couldn't help those other lost colonies. So I don't know why they're bothering. These towers are just going to make us a target. Damn Alliance. Have they ever done anything _right_?"

"They saved the Council from the geth, you jackass," Mark observed. Kaidan smiled wryly at the farmer.

"The Council," Delan snorted. "Yeah, exactly. The Alliance is too deep in the aliens' pockets to be trusted. I say we humans need to look to ourselves. Like that other group. What's it called? Cerberus."

Kaidan stiffened and set down his fork.

"They get the job done," Delan went on, pointing his fork at Mark. "Cerberus stands up for humanity."

"Ceberus," Kaidan said, his voice low and cold, "is a bunch of terrorists."

"Sure," Delan said, taking another swig of his beer. "Of course the _Alliance_ would say..."

"My old team shut down over half a dozen Cerberus cells," Kaidan interrupted. "Cerbers wiped out whole colonies just to test out alien technologies. They turned innocent civilians into mindless husks in an attempt to produce slave laborers. They turned a team of scientists into husks and watched them rip each other apart. They killed a squad of _fifty _Marines just to watch the effects of thresher maw acid and they killed one of the most highly decorated admirals in the Alliance to keep all their dirty dealings secret." He stopped and took a breath.

"Cerberus is _not_ looking out for humanity."

Delan stared at him, his fork halfway to his mouth. Mark looked at Kaidan with a mix of respect and amusement. Lilith looked at everyone nervously, then dropped her fork to her plate.

"How do you know?" Delan asked, rallying himself from his initial surprise. "Do you actually know anyone _in _Cerberus?"

"When I was on the Normandy," Kaidan told him, "we got a lot of distress calls from colonies that had gone off of the grid. In most cases, it was Cerberus that had wiped them out. In fact, we think they may be behind these recent colony attacks."

"Wait. The Normandy?" Delan repeated. "Hell, wasn't that the ship that was helmed by...oh, what's her name?"

"Shepard," Mark said. He shoved a bite of potato into his mouth.

"That's it," Delan nodded. "Could never remember the name. She's the one they thought was dead, right? But she joined Cerberrus, too, now, didn't she? Like I said, Cerberus gets the job done..."

"Commander Shepard is _dead_," Kaidan replied, hating the way the words tasted in his mouth. "And even if she hadn't died, she would never have joined Cerberus."

"How do you know?" Delan asked. "From what I heard..."

"It's all lies!" Kaidan snapped, a little more sharply than he meant to. More quietly he added, "Shepard is dead."

"Jesus," Delan blinked. "You don't know that. She could be alive."

"She's not," Kaidan said. "If she was..."

_If she was, she would be with me._

Of course, Kaidan couldn't say that. If Shepard had lived through the Normandy attack, Kaidan wouldn't have let her out of his sight for a moment. And if he could do it all over again, he wouldn't have let her out of his sight back then, either. If he had disobeyed her last order, he might have been able to save her. Or he could have died with her. That was an end he could have accepted. Instead, he had lived, alone and full of guilt.

Kaidan stood suddenly. "Thanks for dinner, Lilith," he said. "I think I need some air. I'm getting a headache."

"Hell," Delan said, "You got that worked up about Cerberus?"

"Let him be, Delan," Lilith said, as angry as Kaidan had ever heard her. "The commander gets headaches. He's a biotic."

"Well, shit," Delan said, looking up at him. "Ain't you a piece of work?"

"Shut up, Delan," Mark told the man. "Anyone would get headaches listening to you spout off." Mark nodded to Kaidan. "Dinner'll be in the fridge when you get back. Sorry about Delan here. He's full of horseshit."

"Mark!" Lilith hissed at him.

"'S true," Mark shrugged.

"Hey," Delan said, frowning at him. "I'm your cousin."

"I know," Mark said, scooping up another bite of potatoes. "That's the only reason you're welcome in this house."

Kaidan heard Delan and Mark continue to bicker as he wandered out the back door into the evening air. Directly behind the pre-fab house was one of Mark's irrigated fields, ripe with a new strain of wheat-barley mix. Kaidan walked to the edge of the field and stretched out his hand. The heads of the grain brushed his palm. He breathed in deeply. It was a wonderful smell. He did miss this when he left the colonies, this wonderful smell of ripened grain right before a storm.

And there would be a storm. Kaidan had come to understand the weather patterns on these various worlds. He had always associated the smell of ozone with biotic energy before, having grown up in a biotic training camp on a space station. But now, he realized that it was actually the other way around. The smell of ozone had been a warning of storms in nature long before it spoke of discharged biotic energy.

Either way, the smell reminded him of Shepard.

Now there was a surprise, he thought, letting his hand drop to his side. Even now that he was beginning to get over her, so many things still reminded him of Shepard. He wondered if the smell of wheat and a gathering storm would have reminded her of her childhood. He had never thought to ask her much about her past. If she had lived, he would have liked to have gotten to know her better - to learn every little thing about her.

_If she had lived._

Only she hadn't, Kaidan thought. She hadn't lived. If she had, she would have been with him these last two years, and he with her. They would have gone to stop the Reapers together, not let the problem fester in boardrooms and bureaucratic meetings.

Kaidan knew that Anderson was working on the Reaper problem. At times, he wondered if Anderson needed some help there, but it wasn't really his place to ask. Anderson had the Reapers covered, and stopping these attacks were Kaidan's business.

And dealing with annoying locals was also his business.

Kaidan sighed. He wished he hadn't lost his temper back there. He rarely lost his temper in the past, but it seemed he was loosing his cool more readily these days. Two years of trying to act like a machine all the time had taken their toll on him. Two years of trying to ignore the rumors about Shepard hadn't helped. So when Delan had talked about Shepard joining Cerberus...

_Cerberus_. Kaidan shook his head. Hell, he was out here to _investigate _Cerberus, not listen to crap about how Shepard might have joined them. And that meant, he thought with a pang of regret, that he should have kept that info about Cerberus' past actions to himself. It was classified, so it was completely stupid of him to have said it. But he'd been so angry, he wasn't thinking clearly. He really was on a hair trigger these days.

Anyhow, he told himself. It didn't matter what Delan thought. Shepard would never join with terrorists, even if she had lived. She would never have left the Alliance, never have left _him_.

But even as Kaidan thought that, the ideas of what might have been grew dim in his mind. It was so hard to think of what Shepard _would_ have done because, well, she hadn't done any of it. She had _died_, and the last two years had happened instead. And because she wasn't here, Kaidan was out on this distant world surrounded by morons like Delan – and good people like Lilith and Mark, it was true – and he was trying to stop Cerberus's crazy plans once again.

Only this time, Kaidan was on his own.


	25. Rebellion

_Chapter 25_

_(rebellion)_

_

* * *

_

**Note**: I try to keep the swearing to tactful level, but Jack is the type to use the f-bomb upon occasion. So...bombs away.

Also, this chapter references Kyrie's service in the Blitz, which is detailed in chapter 24 of Valkyrie if you happen to be curious.

**Author update:** Thanks again (again and again!) for all the feedback and comments and subscriptions. They mean so much to me!

Horizon comes soon, and I have been working on chapters in and around that horrible moment for several weeks. I want to get the Horizon chapters polished from beginning to end before posting, so I will likely finish writing them all and then post the chapters in quick succession.

All that goes to say, please be patient, as my progress may slow a little as I get the Horizon chapters written and edited. But it will get done - the sooner the better.

Sheesh - I feel so bad! You awesome readers, actually waiting to read my angst... I wish I had something more _happy _coming. *grumbles about ME3 being so far off*

But there IS fun stuff later, I swear!

Alright: the screws tighten...

* * *

"This isn't how I hoped this rescue mission would end," Miranda said, frowning at the bloodstained walls in disgust. Shepard's face remained impassive as she turned to the bloody computer beside the corpse. The screen flickered on at her approach, bringing up the logged-in account of one of the Eclipse mercs that lay dead in the hallway outside.

"Is this the Cerberus agent we're looking for?" Garrus asked, pointing to the dead man on the table.

"Yes, that's Tyrone," Miranda replied.

"EDI," Shepard said, calling up the ship via the comm link via her omnitool, "What have we got here?" Before her on the computer screen, she saw several documents, all of which appeared to be in some sort of code.

"This computer contains the encrypted intelligence captured from the Cerberus agent," EDI's precise voice intoned. "The information could adversely affect Cerberus if it were ever circulated publicly."

"What kind of information?" Miranda asked, just as Shepard remembered the Eclipse logs she had found in the other room.

"The rachni," Shepard answered her. "It must be. He knew..." She gazed at the dead man, suddenly not sure if she felt sorry for him after all. If he had been one of the bastards who killed Admiral Kahoku, then he got what was coming to him.

"Rachni?" Miranda said, blinking. "They're extinct."

"Not the ones we ran into," Garrus said, hiw wry voice twanging in the small room. "How many compounds did we find them in, Shepard?"

"Too many," Shepard replied. "I can still remember the smell."

"And the way they exploded when they died," Garrus added. "What good times..."

"Rachni?" Miranda scoffed. "Cerberus would never do anything so reckless as to bring back the rachni."

"Do you really believe that or are you just playing dumb?" Garrus snapped at her. Miranda scowled at him. Shepard held up a hand between her two squadmates.

"They did bring back rachni," Shepard told Miranda, letting her hand drop. "And apparently, this guy had files about it – and they're all in here."

"Those files belong to Cerberus," Miranda told her.

"Those files belong to the Allliance officers who had to cold case the investigation into Kahoku's murder," Shepard said, her voice turning hard as steel. "I found him dead in a cage full of rachni, with needle marks all up his arm."

"Cerberus would never..." Miranda began again.

"Save it," Sheprd snapped. She was regretting bringing the woman with her. At the time, it had seemed like a good idea to take one Cerberus operative to save another. Now, however, she decided that Miranda could best serve the mission by staying the hell out of her way.

Still, Shepard realized, Miranda couldn't tell Shepard what to do. And Shepard saw an opportunity here. She couldn't remember many email addresses off the top of her head, but the ones she did know would suffice. She typed a quick message into the computer, thanking heaven that the mercs had left their accounts open and logged in to the extranet. She suspected EDI could block Cerberus accounts, but not those of an outside client.

Shepard was just about to send them when she suddenly had an idea. She added Kaidan's address to the list as a "blind carbon copy," as they used to say, then sent the files.

"What did you just do?" Miranda demanded as Shepard's omnitool flickered away.

"Data uploaded to Alliance command," EDI said, her voice betraying no hint of judgment with that brief observation.

"What have you done?" Miranda demanded. Garrus stepped between the Cerberus officer and Shepard, his mandibles flaring.

"Back down," he growled at her.

"It's okay Garrus," Shepard said. "I've tipped your hand to the Alliance," she told Miranda, evenly. "If it turns out that Cerberus has done nothing, then you have nothing to worry about. But if, in fact, Cerberus _was_ using the rachni for experiments and they _did _murder Kahoku..."

"They didn't," Miranda insisted.

"Then there's nothing to worry about," Shepard shrugged. "They'll read your dead man's final words and that will be all. But if Cerberus _did_ experiment on the rachni," Shepard's eyes narrowed. "Then why the hell would you want to follow them?"

Miranda blinked at Shepard with her great blue eyes.

"Even if Cerberus had brought back the rachni," Miranda said slowly, "No doubt it would have been for a good reason."

"You keep telling yourself that," Shepard replied. "But I saw the people they allowed to die – the people they killed to keep their experiments secret. Tell you what," Shepard turned to the computer again, "I'll send you a copy of this data, too, Lawson. You can take a look for yourself, if you can get the file decrypted."

"Cerberus protects humans," Miranda said automatically, her eyes not quite meeting Shepard's. "They would never endanger human lives like that."

"The Blue Suns back on Omega also claimed to protect humans – for a fee," Shepard said, earning a wry look from Garrus. "They had quite the protection racket going there. But a mob boss and a guardian are two very different things, even if they both say that they have the same job."

"That still wasn't your information to give," Miranda said angrily.

"It wasn't yours to withhold," Shepard replied, raising an eyebrow. "Just like it isn't your place to question my decisions. Back to the ship, Lawson. Garrus. We have a convict to recruit and this mission wasted more than enough of our time."

"Right behind you Shepard," Garrus said.

Miranda cast them both a disgusted look, then fell into line behind them.

* * *

"Any mail?" Lilith asked Kaidan. She walked into the kitchen to find the marine sitting at the table over a cup of coffee, tapping on his omnitool.

"Mail?" Kaidan looked up. "No. Well, I don't know." He took another sip from his mug. "Your colony link is just too slow to check my Alliance mail. Soon enough I'll get the new system online - if I can ever calibrate the GARDIAN's comm system properly."

"The defense towers are going up quickly," Lilith noted. "I had no idea the Alliance could work so fast."

"Well, that's the easy part," Kaidan told her. "That crew has done this a dozen times or more."

"You know them?"

"A little," he shrugged. "They come and go so quickly that we don't talk much. And they keep to themselves. They're contractors, so they don't spend much time with me aside from saying 'Here's the on button' and 'Have at it.'"

"I see," Lilith said. "Well, I wish you luck. We'll be busy all day – harvest is nearly here. Mark's seeing to the combines and I'm meeting a crew to get the trucks and the grain elevator ready to go. When we're done tonight, we're going to have an old fashioned potluck down at the grange. You're welcome to..." She broke off, and Kaidan picked up on her unspoken hesitation at once.

"It's okay," he said. "I have a lot of work to do."

"It's not that they don't like you..." Lilith said quickly.

"It's just that they don't like me," Kaidan chuckled. "I get it."

"They just..."

"They don't like the Alliance or marines or biotics," Kaidan looked up and gave her the best reassuring smile he could manage. "It's alright, Lilith, really. You and Mark have more than made up for them."

"Right," she murmured. "There's leftovers in the fridge."

"I'll polish them off," he said with a smile. "Thanks."

"Anytime," she replied.

With a frown, Lilith left to prepare for the harvest.

* * *

"I don't agree with everything they do here," Garrus said, looking from the cell block on one side of the hallway to the other cell block, "but these guards are keeping maniacs away from innocent people. They're acting in the galaxy's best interest."

"I suppose," Shepard said, frowning. "Only you said it yourself: this is more of an extortion racket than a prison. Besides, there's something wrong here. I can't put my finger on it exactly, but I don't like it."

"It's a prison, Shepard," Garrus told her. "They're all like this."

"I guess," she said, doubtfully. She sifled a shudder, doing her best to keep her unease from showing in her face. She hadn't been in many prisons, but Purgatory station just felt...horrible. She'd been totally on edge since they arrived. The guards had wanted to confiscate her weapons at the dock, and in a completely uncharacteristic move, Shepard had refused. Every instinct within her told her that she needed to keep her guns and wits about here here. She was glad once again that she had Garrus at her back.

"Keep your guard up," Shepard told him. "I have a bad feeling about all this."

"So why did you choose the bounty hunter to come with us?" Garrus muttered, jerking his head at Zaeed, who followed a ways behind them.

"He knows criminals," she replied. "Plus, he's been paid well. I don't think the cons in here could buy him off. Stay close, though. You're the only person I trust here, Garrus."

"Same here, Shepard," he told her, smiling a little with what looked like pride.

They walked on down the hall, then turned a corner. Shepard froze, then swallowed hard. The scene reminded her suddenly of a memory from her past:

Before her, a guard in a cell was beating a prisoner until blood ran down his face. Outside of the cell, another guard looked on impassively.

"Is that really necessary?" she asked the watching guard. Just seeing this made her feel sick.

"This is a massage compared with what his victims went through," the guard standing watch said.

"Stop this," Shepard said. "For your own sake." She looked up at the guard and held his gaze. The turian blinked at what he saw in her face.

"Right," he said. "Knock it off," he told the other guard. "We're done with him." The other guard stopped as if dazed, then kicked the prisoner one last time. They both cast strange glances at Shepard as they walked stiffly away. Shepard frowned at them both, then walked on down the hall.

"What the hell was that all about, Shepard?" Garrus hissed at her, catching up to her elbow.

"She's sparing those two their decency," Zaeed said. "What little they have left. No one comes out of torture unchanged."

"I know it's not much to combat the...injustice of this place," Shepard told Garrus. "But it's something."

"Have you never seen torture before?" Garrus asked her. His tone was...gentle, which surprised her. He sounded almost like he was talking to a civilian – a very young one. It suddenly occurred to Shepard that for having had her back during most of their missions against Saren, the turian knew very little about her personally.

"I once beat a batarian to unconsciousness after the battle of Elysium," Shepard told him, flatly. As she anticipated, Garrus' face seemed to falfell, his expression changing from kindly interest to pure astonishment. "So yeah, I know a little about anger and what it can do to a person."

"Did Kaidan know that?" Garrus asked, blinking.

"Yeah," Shepard said, smiling a little in spite of herself, in spite of the situation, and even in spite of her growing sense of dread. "He knew."

"And he didn't...disapprove?"

"Astonishingly, no," Shepard said. "Of course, he was impressed that I ended up having a change of heart in the end." She explained the whole bizarre story. "So, yeah, since I stopped short of killing that slaver, turned away from that path, Kaidan seemed to think I was alright," she shrugged. "He absolved my guilt over it, so to speak."

Garrus' mandibles flared and he looked at her for a moment before turning his head away.

"You're a lot more merciful than you let on, Shepard," he said, quietly.

"Yeah, I know," she snorted. She glanced back at Zaeed. The bounty hunter stood a ways back, staring down at the prison floor below. "Don't spread it around, though," she told Garrus. "I don't think our allies in Cerberus would be quite as impressed with the truth as Kaidan was."

Garrus nodded. Together, they continued down the walkway over the prison yard. Shepard hoped this recruitment mission would be over as quickly as possible.

* * *

"Nice haircut, bitch."

The convict known as Jack lifted her chin and narrowed her eyes on Shepard's head. Shepard gave the woman a wry smile and lowered her gun.

"Likewise," Shepard said.

"What the hell do you want?" Jack asked.

"I just saved your ass," Shepard told her. "You realize that, right?"

"He was already dead," Jack said, nodding at the guard at her feet, the guard whose head had just been blown off by a precise bullet from Shepard's gun. "He just didn't know it. So I'll ask you again: what the hell do you want?"

Shepard fought the urge to roll her eyes. Why couldn't every recruitment mission be as easy as Zaeed's and Kasumi's? Those two had just waltzed onto the ship. Recruiting Jack, however, had been a complete ordeal.

Their mission to "purchase" this woman – labeled on the dossier as the galaxy's most powerful human biotic – had gone south shortly after Shepard and her team had reached outprocessing. The warden had decided that selling convicts was so profitable – in addition to his other scheme of blackmailing planets to keep their convicts in prison here – that he had decided to try and ransom Shepard. It just went to show, Shepard thought, that rebuilt or no, she could still trust her instincts.

Shepard hadn't wanted to stick around and find out what price she'd go for. Considering how many people she'd pissed off in the past, she the bidding war among the batarians alone would more than pay back what the Illusive Man had spent on her.

In their wild escape from the station, Shepard had ended up opening up every door in Purgatory. She and Zaeed and Garrus had fought through hordes of prisoners and guards alike, then killed the warden. They had raced back to the ship, only to find the convict they were looking for standing right outside of the Normandy's docking bay. She had been pacing up and down, ranting to herself. She probably would have been tearing out her hair if she had any. It seemed that Jack had...issues with Cerberus.

"I'm not going anywhere with you," Jack said wish a sneer. "You're Cerberus."

"I'm working with Cerberus for now because they can help me save a lot of lives," Shepard replied, hating that she had to say she was working with Cerberus at all.

"With them, for them," Jack shrugged, "I don't care. You show up in a Cerberus frigate to take me away somewhere. Do you think I'm stupid?"

"This ship is going down in flames," Shepard said, "We can get you out of here and we're _asking_ for your help – not dragging you out."

Jack gazed at Shepard, clearly sizing her up.

"The haircut was from Cerberus, by the way," Shepard added. "It's a long story."

"Huh," Jack said, considering. She looked at Shepard a moment more, then said boldly:

"Biotically, I could kick your ass."

"Is that a challenge?" Garrus asked, aiming his assault rifle at her.

"Want it to be, turian?" Jack snapped.

"We don't need to test that right now," Shepard told him. "We need her, Garrus, uninjured, too. I'd have to go full power on her."

"Try me," Jack said, thumping her chest with her delicate hands. "I just took down three heavy mechs back there, or did you miss that?"

"I bet that was just adrenaline." Garrus spoke to Shepard, but looked at Jack. "She couldn't do that again."

"Garrus..." Shepard warned.

"Wanna bet?" Jack snarled.

"While I doubt she has the discipline to pull that off a second time," Shepard said, "we came here to rescue her from this hell-hole. Let's give her the chance to walk out."

"Rescue?" Jack snorted. "Walk? What kind of sand you on, lady? I'm not going anywhere with you. I don't even know your name."

"The name's Shepard," Shepard told her.

"Never heard of you."

"She's Commander Shepard of the Normandy," Garrus said. "Savior of the Citadel? War hero? Missing in action? Ring a gong?"

"A bell, Garrus," Shepard said, torn between a laugh and a weary sigh. "It's 'ring a bell'."

"Why a bell?" he asked.

"I don't know," she replied. Shepard looked up to see that Jack was regarding them both with interest.

"You're the one that tore up all those batarians during the Blitz," the convict said. "Used mostly biotics, too."

"That's me," Shepard replied.

"I saw those vids," Jack said. "You left a pile of corpses as high as the barricade."

_The girl is impressed by power_, Shepard thought. That would be good to keep in mind. Instead of protesting her fame, for once, Shepard just shrugged.

"Cerberus brought me back for a suicide mission," she said. "I plan to get the job done, then tell them to leave me the hell alone. You're welcome to do the same, or you can stay here. It's your choice."

"Why don't you just help me escape and we'll call it even for me not killing you?" Jack said, raising an eyebrow.

Shepard shook her head. "You can come with me, but if you do, you follow my orders. I'm not about to unleash you on the galaxy, given your record."

"Screw you," Jack told her. A flare of blue shivered over her bare, inked shoulders. "I'm not taking Cerberus's orders. You can just go right back to them and tell them all to go fuck themselves."

"Fair enough," Shepard replied, holstering her gun. "Leave her. Let's go." Shepard turned to walk away. In the reflection of the window, she saw Jack hesitate. The girl's ruby lips twisted into a worried frown.

Shepard took the opportunity to study the convict. The girl was not at all what Shepard had been led to expect. Jack was viciously bitter and very pretty. Shepard wasn't sure if the latter was the reason for the former, but considering Jack's current digs, Shepard suspected it might be part of it. She also wondered how much the biotics added to the apparent crazy. Sometimes implants caused strong biotics to go haywire.

And Jack was a strong biotic. The energy was rolling off of her in waves, flaring unpredictably and crackling uncontrollably. Shepard was having a hard time shutting down her sensitivity to it. The woman was like a live wire – high-voltage and highly unstable. Shepard knew Garrus and Zaeed couldn't sense Jack's energy, being non-biotics. They couldn't sense Shepard's energy, either. And Jack seemed completely unaware of Shepard's energy as well. Though given how undisciplined Jack was, Shepard was not surprised. Only the most controlled biotics could sense the biotic energy of people other than themselves. Shepard had been able to sense Kaidan's energy, for example, but not as easily as he had been able to sense hers.

Shepard suspected that between herself and Jack, Jack was the stronger biotic. But Shepard also suspected that she would still come out on top in a head-to-head fight. In Shepard's experience, raw power was nothing without focus. Jack may have the edge on power, but Shepard knew both biotics and guns, both instinct and tactics. When she was as an L3, Shepard had taught herself many useful tricks that made up in precision what she had lacked in power. Now, as an L5, she was retraining herself to have both power _and_ precision. She would probably never match Jack's level of kick, but Shepard could outmanuver her. And she was tougher. Shepard had never been...squishy.

Still, even without discipline and wearing nothing but that belt as a bra, Jack would be one hell of a fighter. Too bad she wanted to stay and burn...

"Alright," Jack said at last, "You want me to come with you, make it worth my while."

"What do you want?" Shepard asked, turning to face her.

"I bet your ship has lots of Cerberus databases," Jack said. "I wanna look through those files, see what Cerberus has got on me. You want me on your team, let me go through those databases."

_What Ceberus has got on her?_ Shepard thought. Hell, if Cerberus was keeping tabs on a biotic convict and that convict clearly had some history with Cerberus, then Shepard wanted to see those databases, too. Either she would learn something interesting about her new teammate or Cerberus or both.

"I'll give you full access," she said. "Let me know what you find."

"You better be straight up with me," Jack said, pointing a finger at her.

Shepard nodded.

"So why the hell are we standing here?" Jack asked.

"Move out," Shepard said.

As the commander walked towards the docking bay door, Jack turned to gaze tentatively out of the window at the Normanday, it's great Cerberus logo blazoned along the hull like a brand. Then she turned and followed Shepard onto the ship.

* * *

"...that accounts for our progress so far. The convict has been recruited. She is...volatile at best, and she's demanded access to Cerberus's files. Shepard granted that request."

"Jack is useful." The Illusive Man's pixilated image blew out a pixilated cloud of smoke. "Like a lost sheep returned to Cerberus' fold – under Shepard's watchful eye."

"Lost sheep?" Miranda frowned.

"In a manner of speaking, of course."

"Jack had claimed that Cerberus had something to do with..."

"Is that everything, Miranda?" the Illusive Man cut off her question, his glowing eyes seeming to pierce right through her, even across the holographic comm link.

"That's everything," Mirand said. The Illusive Man said nothing, just stared. Miranda shifted from one foot to the other, feeling suddenly uneasy. She had relayed her mission reports – all except one. Yet, it was no surprise to her when the Illusive Man took another drag from his cigarette and said:

"You didn't mention the data that Shepard uploaded to Alliance command..."

"She uploaded it before I could stop her," Miranda said, realizing belatedly how defensive she sounded. "It was an outside account - EDI couldn't block it. Besides, she's the commanding officer. I couldn't question her authority, not in front of that turian."

The Illusive Man just stared at her impassively and the Cerberus officer scowled. "If you had just implanted her with a control chip as I'd suggested..."

"Human physiology is...delicate," the Illusive Man said, cutting her off. "Sticking metal in Shepard's brain isn't the way to control her. The way to create order is to suggest change from within, not impose it from without."

"What do you mean?" Miranda asked, her eyes narrowing.

"Take, for example, torture," the Illusive Man said. "Who is really changed by that encounter? The one in pain, or the one inflicting the pain?" The Illusive Man smiled a little as he answered his own question: "In the end, Miranda, the real change is done to the torturer, not his prisoner."

He lifted up his shot glass and considering it with glowing eyes.

"There is an inner...part...to humans," he said. "It twists and turns this way and that. You can try and turn it from the outside, like a weathervane in the wind, but when a stronger wind comes along, the arrow points the other way. It is better – and far more lasting – to persuade that inner part of a man or woman to move of its own accord, to coax the subject to step in the direction you want them to go. Then, even when the strongest wind blows, that human will walk the path you intend out of habit – even if that course leads straight into the heart of a storm."

"Are you talking about...indoctrination?" Miranda asked, frowning.

"That simple word does not cover all shades of persuasion," the Illusive Man said, taking a sip of his drink. "There are other ways of convincing a person to shift that inner part of herself – to fall into a pattern she did not intend, to go down a road she would not have taken if had she seen where it led."

He set down his glass and looked up at Miranda. When he smiled again, Miranda surpressed a shudder.

"There will be repercussions for Shepard's actions, Miranda, have no doubt about that. For now, just make sure that you give me a full mission report the next time you check in."

"Yes, sir." Miranda murmured.

"Good," the Illusive Man said, his smile widening. "Dismissed, Miranda."


	26. Horizon 1: Stay

_Chapter 26_

_(Stay)_

_(Flashback, captain's quarters, Normandy SR-1, one month and three days after the Battle of the Citadel, in the evening following a groundside mission)_

_This marks the beginning of the Horizon chapters._

* * *

"Shepard, you know I can't stay tonight."

"I know."

Shepard looked up at Kaidan, her hair tangled about her face, her lips red and swollen. Kaidan told his arms to let go of her, to push him out of this bed so that he could get back to his station now before anyone noticed that he was missing. His arms didn't want to listen, and neither did the rest of his body. Instead, all of his muscles and nerves and everything in him was responding to the way that Shepard was looking at him right now, like she never wanted to let him go.

"I came here to talk about the last assignment," he told her, still not pulling away.

"Really?" she asked, her lips curving into a smile. "Is that why you started kissing me the moment you walked through the door?"

"You kissed me first," Kaidan said, raising an eyebrow.

"I forget the details," she said, shrugging one shoulder.

"Shepard, you don't forget much of anything," Kaidan told her.

"Alright, I kissed you first," she agreed. "You didn't seem to mind."

"I didn't," he said. "But we can't..." He looked down at where their still-clothed bodies were twined together, their legs tangled in the sheets.

"You know we can't," he said, sadly.

"Okay," she said. Her smile made her chin pull forward slightly, and Kaidan recognized the expression at once. She was upset, but felt she shouldn't be, so she was trying to hide it. Funny how he had come to read her so well, he thought.

"Shepard, I..."

"Did you want to leave or did you want to talk?" Shepard asked. She pulled back from him and Kaidan sat back on the bed to let her up. She gathered herself against the headboard, legs bent, elbows on knees. She ran a hand through her hair and raised her eyebrows expectantly.

"I..." Kaidan sighed. "I'd rather do...what we were doing, but..."

"I hear you," she said letting her hand drop. "I would, too. I far prefer time with you to...anything, really."

Kaidan smiled to hear that.

"Alright," she said, "So what did you want to talk about?"

Kaidan frowned as he remembered his purpose in coming here.

"I wanted to ask you about that empty colony," he said. He watched as her expression fell to match his own: grim, worried, and frustrated.

"Oh," she said, simply.

"What happened there, Shepard?" he pressed. "I thought we were going to look for the geth, but to find... Can you make any sense of it?"

"None," she said. She motioned to the computer on her desk. "I've been researching pirate attacks, slaver attacks, everything I could get my hands on. No one leaves a colony that empty – that clean. No one except..."

"Except who?" Kaidan asked, seeing her eyes turn suddenly thoughtful.

"No," she murmured, "It couldn't be. Not without us knowing it." She shook her head.

"What couldn't be?"

"Well," she said, frowning. "It's just that there _is_ one other race of aliens who wiped people out without a trace. Wiped out an ancient race, to be precise..."

"Ancient race?" Kaidan repeated. "You mean the Protheans? You think...the _Reapers_ did that?"

"No," Shepard shook her head. "The attack on Eden Prime was totally different."

"But Eden Prime was an attack with an objective," Kaidan reminded her. "Sovereign wanted Saren to find and use the beacon. The Prothean attacks were..."

"Yeah, what were they?" Shepard asked when he trailed off. "We still have no idea what the Reapers were after then or what they want now."

"Except that they want to destroy us all," Kaidan replied.

"There must be something more to it," Shepard said. "I don't buy that their 'ways are unknowable.' That mystic machine-god crap really pissed me off."

Kaidan chuckled. Leave it to Shepard to get angry when some being out of a nightmare told her that the annihilation of the galaxy was imminent. As for Kaidan, he found the entire thing more chilling than anything.

"It's hard to believe," he said, "what Sovereign told us – what Vigil told us. I almost wish I didn't know."

"Yeah," Shepard agreed. "I would happily dismiss the whole thing, except for the visions I still have banging around in my head."

Kaidan studied her face. Shepard didn't say much about those visions and the dreams they brought, but he was sure they were still plaguing her. Before he could ask about them, however, Shepard went on:

"It's probably not a Reaper, though," she said. "The Reapers are still in dark space. But maybe... I don't know. It's just that the Prothean extinction is the only thing that comes close to people just...vanishing. Slaver attacks are bloody and brutal – not clean and clinical." She shook her head. "It makes no sense."

Kaidan watched Shepard's profile, wondering if perhaps she was thinking of her own family. He had never asked what happened to them. Though he was curious, he didn't want to pry. Still, Shepard looked troubled, so he couldn't help but offer...something.

"If you need me for anything, Shepard," he said, softly, "You know where to find me."

"I do," she said, raising her eyes to his. "Only what I need right now, you won't...give."

Kaidan frowned. "Shepard, that's not what I meant."

"I know," she said, her mouth twisting in a wry grimace. "I'm sorry. That's unfair. I know that you..." She sighed. "I know."

"I should go," he said, standing.

"Right," she said. She cast him a regretful glance. "I do try to control myself, Kaidan."

"Commander," he said with a curt nod.

"Commander?" she winced. "It's 'commander' again? Before you even leave my quarters?"

"It should be 'commander' all the time," he reminded her. "I probably shouldn't even have come in here."

"Then why did you?" she asked, her voice growing heated. "You could have asked me about slaver attacks in the morning – or over dinner. Why did you come here tonight if _not_ for...?"

She broke off and waved a hand at the rumpled bed. Kaidan know how to answer that. Shepard saw his hesitation and frowned.

"Look, Kaidan," she said, "I know sometimes things are awkward between us, but I... I want you to know that I'm trying to get this right."

"I know," he told her. "And I am, too. It's just that when we've been apart for a while, I have a hard time... I mean, we were groundside together today, but..." He broke off meaningfully.

"Yeah," she said, "Whenever we're together, it seems like it takes us a while to figure out if we're supposed to be officers or friends or if I should just tackle you to the ground and tear all of your clothes off."

"Don't say things like that, Shepard," Kaidan said, closing his eyes and chuckling. "Not when I have to go out to the crew deck in a minute. Someone's going to notice..." He glanced down and then looked back up at her.

"I could help you with that," she told him with a sultry look.

"I...can't," he said, frowning. She held his gaze for a moment, then looked away.

"Alright," she said. "Then I guess I'll...see you later, Kaidan."

Kaidan paused for a moment, wanting to say something, but he couldn't think of anything that he had not already said. With a frown, he turned to go. Behind him, Kaidan heard Shepard sigh heavily. He looked over his shoulder to see she had leaned her head back against the wall and was now staring up at the ceiling.

"Commander?" he said, softly.

"Yes?" she asked, not moving.

"I'm trying to get this right, too."

She lowered her head to look at him, but her weak smile didn't quite reach her eyes.

"You don't have to go, Kaidan," she said.

"Yes, I do."

"Kaidan..." she began.

But she didn't know how to finish that sentence, so she fell silent, just looking at him.

Kaidan gazed at Shepard one last time, then turned and left, before he gave into temptation and stayed.


	27. Horizon 2: Warning

_Chapter 27_

_(Warning)_

_**Author's Note**: In writing the Horizons chapters, I discovered a few places in my story so far that didn't quite match up with what is revealed in game. I have since gone back and re-worked previous chapters to try and rectify the differences (notably Chapter 19 of Chosen, and 6 and 17 of Valhalla)._

_Also, in playing (and replaying and replaying) the dialog at the end of Horizon, and reading (and rereading and rereading) the email after, I still find the facts unclear, the motivations and justifications shift slightly depending upon what dialog options you choose. I think Kaidan's words can be taken many ways, and were written to be deliberately vague. M__y hope in Valhalla is not to give THE answer to Horizons, but AN answer, to try and work a story around the "evidence" in game as to what could possibly explain any and all of this._

_Whatever happened, it's heartbreaking. And in a sick way, frickin' awesome. Full props to Bioware. It's their epic story, after all._

_

* * *

_

"Shepard," the Illusive Man said, taking a drag from his cigarette, "I think we have them."

Something in the man's voice – a hard, brittle edge, and the glint to his eeries blue eyes stopped Shepard in her tracks.

She had thought to come to the comm room to chew the guy out, not to be sent on yet another mission.

Shepard had returned from her trip to Korlus completely pissed off. She sent a message to the Illusive Man right away, the first time she'd actually made an effort to contact him. In her email, she demanded to know why he had neglected to tell her that Warlord Okeer had made a deal with the Collectors to gain the tech he needed to create his genetically perfect krogan – the same genetically perfect krogan that was still in a holding tank down in the cargo bay. If she had known that Okeer had been dealing with the Collectors, she would have contacted the warlord more quickly. As it was, she'd wasted time running other errands for Cerberus out in the Omega nebula and so Okeer had been killed in a merc turf war, and she had only just saved his final experiment.

And if that had made her angry, it was nothing compared to how she was feeling about what Cerberus had done to Jack. Though Shepard hadn't gotten much out of the tattooed girl since picking her up on the Purgatory, she was sure that Jack's rabid interest in Cerberus's databases was more than just academic. "Academic," after all, was a word Shepard didn't readily associate with the convict.

And speaking of Jack, Shepard wanted to discuss this team of hers, to figure out why it was that the Illusive Man seemed intent on giving her dossiers for the craziest, most unstable squadmates in the galaxy to walk behind her into a suicide mission that was going to require finesse. Sure, they were powerful, but they were going to need a hell of a lot of training to come up to snuff as soldiers, much less to work together as a team to take out the Collectors.

Only Garrus was ready for a mission like that, and Shepard suspected that even _he _was off of his game. What Garrus needed, she wasn't sure – maybe closure of some sort. But he hadn't been talking to her after his initial confession about what happened to his team, and she hadn't wanted to pry.

But mostly, Shepard was spoiling for a fight. The Illusive Man clearly had way more information about the Collectors and the Reapers than he was giving her, yet he kept sending her off on these missions without any clear picture of what she was in for.

It was like he was holding a light right in front of her on a darkened path. She could see well enough to take the next step, but no more. She had no idea where she was being led, only that she was being led, and that she couldn't see clearly enough to find her own way. It was enough to make her want to use her biotics to rip out a bulkhead.

After sending her angry message to the Illusive Man, Shepard had stomped off to take a shower. She then dressed in a Cerberus casual uniform, hating the way that the tight shirt and loose cargo pants fit just like her old Alliance utilities. The clothes felt the same, but in black and white fabric and with a yellow Cerberus logo on the sleeves, they sure didn't look it.

_Just like me_, she thought, rubbing a hand over the short, gold stubble on her head. I_ feel the same inside, but I sure don't look the same. I look like a Cerberus cultist._

Shepard didn't want to dwell too much on that, though. As she painted her eyes, she thought briefly of wearing something else, but she didn't like the tight lab coat and her officer's uniform was in the laundry. So she left on the t-shirt and pants and took the elevator downstairs. She had barely stepped through the doors to the CIC when chirpy Yeoman Chambers turned to her and said:

"The Illusive Man wants to meet with you in the debriefing room."

"Really?" Shepard asked. That was surprising. She had figured the Illusive Man would blow her off and that she would have to send several angry messages before he would reply. She had gone to the comm room at once.

But when she arrived, it became immediately apparent that they were not going to be talking about Shepard's reservations about the mission. Instead, it seemed that the Illusive Man had yet another assignment for her, yet another dark path for her to walk down.

"So what is it?" Shepard asked, suspiciously. "Another dossier? Who is it this time? Another murderer? Another thief?"

"It's the Collectors," he told her.

Shepard blinked and straightened.

"Where?" she asked at once.

"Horizon, one of our colonies in the Terminus Systems, just went silent."

"Went silent?" Shepard asked, frowning. "How many colonies are you monitoring, exactly?"

"If the colony isn't under attack it soon will be," the Illusive Man said, ignoring her question. "Has Mordin delivered the counter measure for the Seeker swarms? Without that tech, you'll be helpless against the Collectors' paralyzing technology."

"Not yet," Shepard said.

"Let's hope he works well under pressure," the Illusive Man said.

"Go back," Shepard said. "How did you get this intel on Horizon when even the Alliance hasn't been able to...?"

"There's something else you should know," he said, his voice flat, cutting her off. He took a drag of his cigarette and looked at her in a way that gave Shepard pause. She guessed at once that he had bad news, and she found her stomach twisting into a knot even before he said:

"One of your former crew, Kaidan Alenko, is stationed on Horizon."

Shepard felt as though the floor had fallen out from under her.

_Kaidan_.

She felt her heart racing even as some rational part of her mind told her to body to calm down and hide what she felt. Emotions were dangerous, emotions could be used, emotions, at best, would distract her – and that could cost Kaidan his life.

_Kaidan_.

He was supposed to be somewhere safe, she thought wildly. He was supposed to be where Cerberus couldn't get him, where the Alliance – where Anderson – had a close eye on him. He was supposed to be in Council space, away from threats, away from her. As long as she stayed away from him, kept her feelings to herself and kept the eyes of her dangerous allies off of him, Kaidan was supposed to be safe.

Even as she thought that, she couldn't believe she'd been so stupid. Of course that wouldn't keep him out of harm's way, but then, she really hadn't been thinking clearly so far as he was concerned. She couldn't believe she was so blind as to forget that Kaidan's work had always been dangerous, that between the two of them, it was always a gamble if they would return to the ship alive at the end of the day.

But before, her specialized missions had been the source of the danger to them both. And so she had, without realizing it, assumed if she stayed away, he would be fine. Kaidan was an amazing soldier. He'd saved her life dozens of times with his well-timed, increasingly powerful biotics, his cleverly deployed tech attacks, his uncanny knowledge of field medicine. She couldn't imagine any routine Alliance mission getting the better of him.

Since when does Kaidan take routine missions? She asked herself.

Her heart beat even faster.

He never did. He never had.

And now he was in the Collectors' path.

The Collectors were an enemy far greater than Kaidan could take on alone, she realized. And if he was out on a remote colony far from Citadel space, no doubt he was alone.

"Last I knew, Kaidan was Alliance," Shepard said, trying to control the tremor in her voice. "What's he doing out in the Terminus Systems?"

"Officially, it's an outreach program to improve Alliance relations with the colonies."

"So he's with a team," Shepard said, relaxing a little.

"No, he's alone as far as we can tell."

_Damn it_. She sucked in a breath and tried again to steady herself.

"So he's alone and officially his mission is some sort of PR thing. And unofficially...?"

"I don't know," the Illusive Man replied. "But they're up to something. And if they sent Commander Alenko, it must be big."

_No shit_, she thought. The Alliance never sent Kaidan unless they needed the heavy lifting of half-a-dozen ordinary Marines. _Damn it_, Shepard thought, gritting her teeth. Why hadn't she thought of this? Why hadn't she contacted him earlier? Why hadn't she warned him?

_Warned him of what, Shepard? Of a danger you didn't know was coming for him? You were too busy trying to keep him safe by _not _contacting him._

_For all the good that did_, she thought, ruefully.

"I suggest you take it up with him," the Illusive Man added, darkly.

"We need to send a message to the Citadel," she said, "The Alliance can give us reinforcements."

And, she thought, Anderson and the Council would finally get the proof they need to see that the Collectors were behind these colony attacks. She hadn't been able to fully explain her mission with Cerberus the last time she'd spoken to them. Their concern over her Cerberus connection had sort of hijacked that conversation. But now, maybe, they would see the importance of what she was trying to accomplish – and join with her.

"Not until you investigate," the Illusive Man said with a shake of his head. "I don't want the Alliance getting in our way."

"Not until I...?" Shepard felt her biotics flare all along her arms as she bit out the words. If the man had been in the room with her, she would have been tempted to throw him into the picture window behind him.

"This is my...friend were talking about down there," she snapped. "This is a colony under attack. We need reinforcements. I'm not about to take chances with Kaidan...with Alenko's life."

"You don't have time," the Illusive Man said. "Besides, EDI has an order to keep this mission quiet. No messages will be sent to the Alliance until you're ground side."

"You bastard," Shepard ground out.

"Your call, Shepard," the Illusive Man said, his eyes narrowing. "You can do this with Cerberus or you can leave Alenko to the Collectors."

Shepard swallowed, lifted her chin and looked down her nose at him. Something in his tone gave her pause. She knew what she had to do. And she knew that he had guessed the choice she would make before he even called her in here. Why did he keep forcing her into choices like this? Why did he seem to enjoy it so much? Was he just a prick who liked to manipulate the situation or did he like to see her squirm? Maybe both, she thought, ruefully. It was extremely unnerving.

"So the Collectors just happen to pick a colony where a member of my former crew is stationed," she said, her voice going icy cold. "I don't buy it, Illusive. How did they know?"

"It shouldn't be a surprise that the Collectors are interested in you, especially if they're working for the Reapers." His eyes glittered as he added, "They might be going after him to get toyou."

_Might?_ She wanted to laugh. More like they _must_. There was no other explanation that she could think of. And they had picked a hell of a soft spot. There was no way she could leave Kaidan behind. She couldn't on Virmire. She couldn't now.

This could be a trap; it likely _was _a trap. Even as she thought that, she tried to tell herself to be calm, steady. There were other lives at stake here than Kaidan's. There were the lives of her team members, the lives of her crew, of the colonists, too. Much as she would gladly sacrifice all of them for Kaidan, she knew that if she got emotional, she'd just get sloppy. Charging in without a plan was the best way to cause a massacre and loose Kaidan in the process. She had to remain calm.

Still, everything in her heart was screaming at her to get to Horizon immediately and place herself and all the resources at her command between Kaidan and the coming attack.

Her head, however, took over.

"I'll need Mordin to deliver the counter measure," she said. "Send us the coordinates. We'll head right there. How far are we from the planet?"

"Only two hours," the Illusive Man said. "That should be enough time for you to get the counter measure working and suit up."

"That's...convenient that we're so close," Shepard noted, frowning.

"Once you're in place," the Illusive Man said, ignoring her unspoken question, "Then I'll send a message to the Alliance, personally, asking for back up."

"Right," Shepard said. She wanted to believe him, but she didn't. They were going to do this alone, it seemed. But if Kaidan was in danger, she didn't have time to waste arguing with the boss about reinforcements. As it was, they might already be too late.

"This is the most warning we've ever had, Shepard," the Illisive Man reminded her as his glowing image flickered away. "Good luck."


	28. Horizon 3: Gone Silent

_Chapter 28_

_(gone silent)_

_

* * *

_

"Lilith, we've got a problem." Kaidan frowned as a colonist bumped into him rudely, causing him to fall a step behind the woman he spoke to.

"Still can't calibrate the targeting matrix?"

"Those defense towers towers are useless if we don't figure it out." Kaidan shook his head, scowling.

Though Lilith seemed to think this was no big deal, Kaidan was getting worried. It had been almost a week since the contracting team had finished building the towers, a week since they had picked up and left Horizon.

Yet, in spite of spending his every waking hour in the colony's plaza trying to get the targeting systems set up correctly, Kaidan still could not make the guns fire straight. He thought he had accounted for the trace amounts of silicone suspended in the upper atmosphere that interfered with the new comm link and the radio-targeting long-range scopes, but what had worked on paper simply wouldn't work in reality.

It was strange. This system shouldn't be any different than any of the others Kaidan had set up. Only the environmental factors had changed, but Kaidan had calibrated for worlds with much harsher conditions than these. Horizon's mild weather – barring the occasional summer storm like the one gathering above – should have made these calibrations a walk in the park.

Instead, Kaidan just kept banging his head against a configuration wall. He would adjust the targeting parameters, save the changes, then the moment he went to fire up the GARDIAN lasers, all systems would fail. He'd log into the user interface only to find his settings had never taken hold. That happened every damn time. He figured it must be a bug, only he couldn't pinpoint where in the software that things had gone wrong. He had checked and rechecked the code. He had tried every work-around he could think of. He could get the systems to accept any number of targeting vectors, they just wouldn't save those vectors when he went to fire the guns. It was almost like the stupid systems didn't _want_ to be calibrated, like they kept shifting parameters deliberately to keep the GARDIAN offline.

Since he couldn't pinpoint the bug, Kaidan almost suspected sabotage. But that didn't make any sense. The team that had set up the GARDIAN towers had opened the crates right in front of him, and those crates had been sent, sealed, straight from Alliance command on the Citadel. So unless one of the anti-Alliance colonists could code _and_ hack _and_ had a degree in planetary meteorology _and_ had managed to elude the security cams that he'd set up to watch the plaza, Kaidan just couldn't see how this kept happening.

The delay wasn't winning him any friends, either, not that his previous six weeks on Horizon had made him popular to begin with. The longer he went without being able to make the Alliance's expensive gift work, the less the people here wanted it – and the more they began to whisper that it was really all a giant monitoring device sent to spy on them for the alien Council.

Kaidan was trying his best here, but nothing was working and he was exhausted. He had been working late into the night, every night. Today, he had worked from sun-up until lunchtime, when Lilith had arrived to ask him to help get the old comm system back online. The slow connection to the extranet had broken, making everyone in the colony jumpy. As Kaidan followed her towards the grange, Lilith looked back at him with a frown.

"You look terrible," she said.

"Thanks," he replied with a scowl.

"Mark said you look like a well-armored bum," she said lightly, evidently trying to make a joke, "the way you hang out in the plaza all day with bags under your eyes."

"A bum?" Kaidan frowned, rubbing his chin. "I shaved this morning."

"Once you fix the comm system, you should go take a nap," Lilith told him.

"Can't," Kaidan replied, "I need to get the GARDIAN up and running." As he walked along, he did his best to ignore the angry glares cast in his direction. The streets were full of people sitting at makeshift picnic tables, all taking their lunch break. Harvest time was a big deal out in the colonies, Kaidan had noticed. Even the schools had been closed for the last week so that everyone could pitch in.

"Right," Lilith said. "Well, I didn't want to come and interrupt you, but getting our comm systems back online takes priority."

"Yeah. Okay." Kaidan said with a bitter laugh. "Surprised people haven't tried to blame _that_ one on me, too."

Actually, he already guessed that they did. Horizons wasn't exactly on the grid, but it did have an extranet link. The colony paid so little for bandwidth, however, and they were so far down on the list of VIPs needing a connection to the extranet, that the link was like going back to the old days of dial-up connections back on Earth. It took a full hour to download a single vid mail from Citadel space.

As a result, Kaidan didn't use the link to check his mailbox, since his encrypted messages from Alliance command assumed a certain level of bandwidth. He didn't mind being offline until he got the new GARDIAN comm link up, though. Other than getting the occasional letter from Lisa, there was nothing to look forward to in his mail. Besides, the colonists would have despised him for taking up their precious extranet time. For the more sentimental types, the comm link represented their one connection to their former homes. To folks like Delan, it was the only concession that there even _was_ a galaxy beyond Horizon.

Kaidan figured this current problem with the comm link was probably just old technology going bad. He knew it was important to take care of it – they were completely without the ability to send messages, even distress calls, until it was back up. He knew well enough that the GARDIAN lasers had nothing to do with the comm link crash. The new system and the old operated on totally different frequencies – or they would when he got the new system working. Kaidan just hoped this comm silence wasn't interference from off-world – an eezo-freighter leak or a broken comm buoy. In that case, they might be off the grid indefinitely.

Sometimes these back-water planets were a real pain, he thought with a sigh. Lilith heard him and turned to him with a worried look.

"People out here don't trust the Alliance," she reminded him. "It's nothing personal."

Kaidan turned to her, ready to say once again that he knew that, that he appreciated her and Mark's generosity even if the rest of the colony was too blind to see the need for protection, when he heard a very strange sound.

It was like...a deep, piercing hum. It seemed to bore right into his brain, like it was coming from inside his own head.

Kaidan blinked, trying to place that sound. He felt like he had heard it once before.

Beside him, Lilith grunted and grabbed at her ears. Behind him, he heard someone say, "What _is_ that?"

Kaidan turned slowly, feeling the pressure of dark energy building in the air behind him. For a moment he thought it was the storm clouds gathering above, but then he realized there was something sliding _through_ the clouds, like a zeppelin made of metal and stone.

Kaidan pulled his assault rifle from his back and looked cautiously through the scope. He was dimly aware of a crowd gathering around him, taking shelter near the hated soldier in their midst. The ship, previously distant and indistinct in the clouds, suddenly came into focus before his open eye:

Floating in the clouds he saw rock laced with wire, boulders surrounding a hub of steel.

Kaidan's heart began to pound. Out of sheer practice, he kept his expression calm. He switched his suit into battle mode, activating full kinetic barriers and bringing up the holographic display before his eyes. A grid, a radar, and targeting aids all popped up along the edges of his vision, flickering blue and translucent. Around him, the colonists registered on his radar as green squares, their names listed last name first, first name last, at the edge of the screen.

Kaidan scarcely saw the display. His eyes were locked on the ship – the ship that looked so familiar because he had spent hours researching it, compiling information on it, gathering omnitool readings on it, watching and re-watching the few video recordings they had taken from the escape pod cameras.

It looked just like the ship that had killed Shepard, the ship that had destroyed the Normandy.

Kaidan didn't know what that meant, didn't know how it was possible that a ship like that could be here, now, on this colony. He wasn't sure if it was the same ship, but it was the same type – a type that no one had seen before or since. It suddenly occured to him that whatever that ship was, he was dealing with the same force as before. Only what that force was, he had no idea.

If it was Cerberus, he thought absently, then they were all in very deep trouble.

A ship like that had taken down the most advanced warship in the Alliance navy. Horizon was a remote colony, stripped of its communications systems, crippled by broken defense towers. And _he_ was only Alliance soldier on the planet.

"Get everyone to the safe house," Kaidan told Lilith. He strove for calm, though he felt dread rising within him. He was outnumbered and he knew it. But he would try to save these people anyway – even if he died doing so.

"I'll cover you," Kaidan shouted at the people still standing, dumbfounded, around him. "Run!"

The cloud before the great ship seemed to shift and tremble. Lightning flashed, and the clouds took shape as a great black mass, growing more solid, coming closer.

Lilith did not move. She stood beside Kaidan, looking up at the approaching darkness with terrified eyes.

"Hurry!" he shouted to her.

But it was too late. The black cloud was upon them, taking the form of insects, each as large as a man's fist. The colonists' screams echoed through the complex, muffled over by the buzz of the swarm. Kaidan shot round after round into the cloud, belatedly thinking of his biotics. He fired a pulse into the thick of them. The blue energy tore through the black mass like scythe through grass. Several of the insects fell to the ground, bouncing a few times before they stilled. But as quickly as the biotic pulse passed, the insects filled in around the empty space, the swarm thick as before.

To his right, Kaidan saw Lilith had fallen, whether she had tripped or been pushed, he did not know. He pulled her to her feet, then cried out as something stung him in the back of the neck, right at the sensitive spot where his skin met the metal of his biotic amp.

The pain was incredible: like a puncture wound and a poison all at once. Kaidan tore the bug-like creature off of his neck, then shook his head as a fog seemed to creep over him. He threw the thing to the ground in disgust, then gripped his gun and gathered his full power to send a biotic slam into the advancing wall of the swarm.

His biotics stopped as if flash-frozen in ice. An energy field like gold fire laced with black smoke flickered over him, surrounding him, pinning his blue-white energy along the lines of his body. He found his feet were stuck, his every muscle paralyzed. He was trapped in a cocoon of dark energy, the full fire of his biotic power trapped with him.

All down the street, he could see swarms descending upon the colonists, stinging them, freezing them, leaving them on the ground where they fell. On his holographic display, for up to a distance of up to twenty meters, the buzzing insects registered as a mass of red triangles on his radar, crawling all over the green squares that were the colonists like ants on a hive.

Kaidan tried to lift his feet and could not.

He tried to open his mouth and could not.

He could only stand there like a sentient statue, as all about him, black bugs swarmed over the colony, locust come to devour the harvest.


	29. Horizon 4: Harbinger

_Chapter 29_

_(Harbinger)_

_

* * *

_

Shepard stepped out of the Kodiak, her heart slamming against her ribcage.

The harvest had begun.

Quite literally, the fields surrounding the small knot of buildings in the valley before her were striped with the tell-tale quilt of threshed wheat. But only half of the fields were cut, the rest still full of grain, bending in the wind to create a rolling, golden sea about the colony of Horizon.

Shepard took a breath to steady herself, and with it, smelled the brittle scent of grain and dust. She knew this smell so well. It brought her back to her childhood – to Mindoir – to people gone and buildings emptied.

Only that had been a rain of blood and fire. This place was being plucked as they stood here, plucked and harvested by _that ship_.

She recognized it, even at the far end of the colony – rock and wire. She had gotten a good view of it all those years ago when she had been falling towards Alchera, her vision failing from lack of oxygen.

It was the same kind of ship that had killed her. And she'd be damned if she let it kill Kaidan.

"We're ground side," Shepard called into the comm link on her suit. She looked up to see a couple of wicked-looking defense towers in the distance. The Collectors must have struck so quickly that no one had time to fire the guns, she thought with a frown. Still, those towers would be extremely useful if they could reach them.

Shepard took a quick glance at the buildings, trying to map a way through the maze in her head before heading down into the colony. Already she began to form a map of the area, tactically thinking about the best place for cover, the easiest way to flank the enemy and avoid being flanked.

None of this was going to count, however, unless they could actually get into the colony. And right between her team and the outlying buildings was a great, black cloud of seeker swarms. Shepard booted up the new shield interface on her suit, then slid a heat clip into her pistol and cocked it.

"Mordin," Shepard snapped, speaking into her comm link. "You sure you certain these armor upgrades will keep us safe from the seeker swarms?"

"Certainty impossible," Mordin replied blithely. "But in limited number, should confuse detection, make you invisible to swarms." Shepard nodded, though Mordin was not there to see her.

"In theory," Mordin added a moment later.

"In theory?" Garrus said doubtfully. Shepard heard his voice on the comm link as well as thrumming from right beside her, where he stood at her shoulder. "That sounds promising."

"Experimental technology," Mordin explained. "Only test is contact with seeker swarms. Look forward to seeing if you survive."

Sometimes, Shepard thought, she loved that amphibious alien. And other times, she just wanted to strangle him.

"It's now or never then," she said grimly. "We need to move."

"At your back, Shepard," Miranda replied. Shepard nodded to the Cerberus officer and the three of them headed out for the colony.

Shepard had hesitated to bring Miranda on the mission given their last outing together, but the woman had insisted on coming along. She had asked to be allowed to see for herself what was happening and Shepard had found that she couldn't say no to that request. Still, she was glad to have Garrus to make up for Miranda.

"Keep your guard up," Shepard told her team, nodding to the sky. "Looks like these suits are working after all, but..._shit_!"

Shepard ducked behind cover as a horde of Collectors came out of nowhere. Well, if she had thought their shuttle landing zone was secret, she now stood corrected. Shepard peered around the side of the wall and got her first look at the things that had attacked her all those years ago...

They were like...bugs. Big bugs made of hard plates over lean, pink muscle. They reminded her of a cross between a beetle collection and something she'd find in a butcher's shop. They stank, too, like rotting meat. She didn't want to think overmuch about how they had come by that smell.

And they were biotics. She could feel the power rolling off of them: a kind of honed, dark energy, the likes of which made her teeth tingle. Suddenly, bringing Miranda along seemed like a really good idea after all.

"Barriers," she called to the Cerberus officer. "Not shields."

"Damn," she heard Garrus shout from her right. "I'm going to be worthless in this fight."

"You're never worthless, Garrus," she assured him. "Just be ready with a concussive shot when those barriers go down."

"Right, Shepard," Garrus nodded and cocked his gun.

"Alright," Shepard called to Miranda. "The one crossing the field – now!"

From her position behind a crate, Miranda nodded, then leaned out from cover long enough to shoot out a warp missile. Shepard readied a biotic throw, but then caught herself in amazement. Miranda's pulse had only brought down its barriers halfway. Shepard gaped for only a second, then tossed another pulse at it. The second direct hit only just broke through the thing's defenses.

"Garrus!" Shepard called, ducking behind a low wall. "Now!"

"Concussive shot?" Garrus asked. "Ready."

A small explosion told Shepard the shot had found its target. She lept up from cover and managed to blast the thing's head off with two shots from the Canifex. A rain of bullets from other Collectors tore right through her shields in a second. Shepard ducked behind cover, again, her mind reeling.

Damn, these things were _tough_. How they hell were they supposed to reach Kaidan in time if it took all three of them working together with specialized attacks just to bring down _one_ Collector?

Still, Shepard thought, her mind instantly going into tactical mode, the Collectors did have weaknesses. They weren't using their biotics to attack, for a start. Even now, as she watched them fight, she saw that they all had the same type of barriers and standard issue guns. They seemed to fight as a collective, not as individuals. It was disconcerting, but it made them predictable, and predictable could be exploited.

And she would have to exploit them fast, she thought. Kaidan was here somewhere, and every second lost might be the one that cost him his life.

Shepard gripped her gun and swallowed her fear. Worry would get her nowhere. She simply had to size up each target and do what she did best:

Fight like hell.

* * *

Kaidan didn't know if it had been mere minutes or hours – time seemed to have gone strangely still in this frozen hell.

He didn't know _how _he had been paralyzed exactly, didn't know _why _he and the colonists were being kept here, waiting in silence, but he could guess at many reasons and each one was more terrifying than the last. He tried to think of who could do this, what groups could possibly have this kind of technology – Cerberus? Some merc band? Perhaps the mythical Collectors, of whom he had heard little except for rumors and whispers? Kaidan thought of them all, but simply couldn't come up with any answers.

His vision grew blurry as his eyes grew increasingly dry. He couldn't blink, couldn't move at all. It was like being held in a stasis field, only the pressure seemed to come from inside as well as without. He tried to use his biotics, tried to move, to run, to scream, hell, to _blink,_ but nothing happened.

He could do nothing but stare down the length of his assault rifle, absently wondering why he'd grabbed this gun this morning instead of his usual pistol. Not, he realized, that a pistol would have helped. He hadn't known what he was fighting until it was upon him. The first few minutes of the attack had been horrifying. But then, silence descended – silence only punctuated by the endless buzzing of those giant insects.

And the waiting was worse.

* * *

Shepard stared down at the bone-white corpse before her, tubes running from it's mouth, along the inside of its elbows, down it's legs, and shuddered.

"It's like the Husks on Eden Prime," she murmured, remembering that day as though it was yesterday.

Kaidan had been at her back then. It was the first day she'd ever seen him fight, and that day she'd been highly impressed with his resolve in battle. In a few short hours he saw a friend die, saw cilivian and marines alike being turned into monsters like this once before her, and yet, he had kept fighting with a grim set to his mouth and a determined look in his eyes.

That day had ended in exploding pain for her, and when she had woken at last in the med bay back on the Normandy, it was to look up into the lieutenant's deep, brown eyes, and instead of seeing violence or anguish there, she had seen...gentleness.

It had astonished her.

For all the sadness that Kaidan had seen in his life, it had never changed him, never made him bitter. Shepard had admired that about him from the first. It was one of the things about him that had crept under her guard, making her think of him as she had no business of thinking of a fellow officer. And in the end, it was one of the things that she had loved best about him: He had always been strong, principled to the core – and yet, so unbelievably gentle.

Shepard pushed that thought aside. She didn't need to get lost in reflections on gentleness. Quite the opposite.

Right now, she needed to be brutal, if only to get through this mess before her and to save Kaidan.

* * *

They were coming.

All over his holographic display, Kaidan could see large red squares now among the tiny red triangles, red enemies out there, moving through the swarms of insect drones. He saw two red squares approaching a green square. He realized that meant that something was approaching a colonist some twenty meters away. Kaidan saw the red squares surrounding the green, and then the green was...dragged off of his radar.

The colonists weren't being killed, he thought with some surprise. That would have snuffed the green entirely. No, the colonists were being taken alive. Another green square was pulled off of the radar, then another, then another and another: green squares carried off by the red.

Kaidan struggled even more against the invisible bonds. Whatever those red squares were – _whoever_ they were – they did not register in his suit's database. His dry eyes scanned the holographic display, trying to read more clearly. He kept wishing he could blink. As far as he could tell, the things weren't human. They didn't register as any goddamn thing, not turian, not batarian, not even vorcha, which sometimes threw low-end scanners for a loop because of their self-evolving capabilities.

But his suit was Spectre make, Alliance software. Even so, "Species Unknown" kept flashing along the bottom of the display.

_Unknown_? Kaidan thought, fighting a rising sense of panic in his chest. He had stayed numb so far out of complete and utter shock, out of a strange sense of helpless wonder. But now, as the red squares drew nearer and nearer, he began to become frightened. What the hell could possibly register as "unknown" to his computers? The gene scanners in his suit were the same make as the ones used by customs in C-Sec. His on-board databases were full of classified Alliance. He should be able to identify any individual, any faction, any species. So if these...whatever they were that were approaching him, were not registering _at all..._

Then Kaidan had no idea what he was dealing with.

* * *

Shepard turned the corner, then stopped short at the sight before her. Two colonists stood frozen before her, one trying to help the other up. About them, a field of dark energy flickered, gold and black, like a sunset shot through with smoke. Shepard felt the energy like a cage: pinning the victims into place, pressing in on them from all sides, holding them like chains running through their very nerves.

"My God," she whispered.

"It's some kind of stasis field," Miranda said. "Pins them in place."

"They've been like this a long time," Shepard murmured.

_And Kaidan is likely the same,_ she thought. _If he's still here._ She had seen the pods lining the streets. They had shot dozens of Collectors as the monsters had tried to put the colonists into them.

Shepard fought the panic rising inside of her. If Kaidan was trapped like _this_, then all his skills would do him no good. She needed to focus, needed to find him. She needed to...

_What the hell was that?_

Shepard picked up the object in the hands of the Collector corpse before her. She turned it this way and that, then, pointed it at a small tree. Cautiously, she pulled what appeared to be a trigger.

A beam of pure energy shot from it, nearly blinding her with it's intensity. Shepard let go of the trigger at once. The top of the tree fell over, neatly cut from its base in a perfect line.

"Shit," she murmured. "That's useful."

"It's like a miniature Thanix," Garrus said in amazement. "This is what I was thinking of building for the Normandy's guns."

"Take it with us," Miranda said.

"Yeah," Shepard replied, handing her grenade launcher to Garrus and strapping the new weapon to her back. "Yeah. I like this thing."

"But I don't know how to use the launcher," Garrus said, frowning at Shepard.

"Learn," she replied, helping him shrug into the harness.

"Save the ammo in that Collector gun," Miranda warned. "You don't know what we'll find in this place. There could be worse than drones and Husks about."

"I don't doubt it," Shepard replied. Under her breath, she added:

"And anything that tries to take Kaidan gets this laser in the teeth."

* * *

He had to get free.

Kaidan strained against the unseen bonds, pushing with all his muscle and biotic might. His biotic energy, the kick he had tried to use just before he had been frozen, pulsed over him, like hot water trapped against a damn of dirty ice. His vision became a haze of blue as biotic energy flared up from his eyeballs. Kaidan pushed and pushed, and still...nothing.

He heard something behind him: a sort of muffled cry. Someone had managed to make a sound, a sort of soft whimper that was little more than taking a breath. He was surprised that he could hear it at all above the relentless buzzing of the drones. But then he heard footsteps, and shuffling and a kind of...clicking. It was rhythmic, yet slightly irregular, like Morse Code, he thought.

And then, suddenly, he saw it.

It was hideous. The thing was like a cockroach on legs. It's swollen, heavily plated head was filled with glowing yellow eyes, like the face of a spider, and it's lean body was humanoid, all corded muscle. It's long fingers were like daggers. It looked like an arachnophobe's nightmare.

Kaidan couldn't run, couldn't cry for help. He could only stand there as the thing came closer and closer, all the while staring at him with great, glowing eyes. Kaidan watched as the creature moved slowly towards him, considering him. To his horror, it cocked its head as if it _knew_ him.

Then, suddenly, it curled up as if in pain. For a moment Kaidan felt hope leap within him, thinking the thing had been shot. But then it flew up into the air about four feet and light exploded from all corners of its body, like magma under a skin of cooling lava. It's many eyes brightened, and it looked like it was being filled with fire.

_ASSUMING DIRECT CONTROL._

Kaidan felt the voice like he had felt the inital sound of the attack: inside his own skull, screaming the words right into his brain. The thing it dropped to the ground, still glowing. It stumbled for a moment, as if disoriented, then, slowly, ever so slowly, it looked up and began to walk towards him.

_WE ARE THE HARBINGER OF YOUR PERFECTION._

If Kaidan could have screamed, he would have. The voice _hurt_. It cut into his head, chilled him to the bone. He felt like he should recognize it, but it bit so deeply into his mind that he could not think clearly enough to place it.

_PREPARE THESE HUMANS FOR ASCENSION._

Kaidan wanted to plug his ears, to block out that voice, but he could not. It seemed to tear into his head, to lodge itself into the heart of him. Fear, more paralyzing than the field that held him from without and within, kept him still. The glowing one walked towards him, trailing a cloud of dark biotic power behind it. It considered him with those flashing eyes, leaned in as if to touch him and then, suddenly –

_DIRECT INTERVENTION IS NECESSARY ELSEWHERE._

The thing stumbled to its knees. The voice grew fainter, now coming from outside of Kaidan's head, and no longer within.

_RELEASING CONTROL._

Kaidan didn't understand what that meant, didn't understand why the glowing figure had suddenly lost its light. But he felt a vague sense of relief as the voice's echo trailed away.

The now-dark creature dropped to the ground before him, still and silent – and utterly dead.

* * *

Shepard froze at the sound of buzzing in the air, then readied her pistol as she looked for cover. Funny how in less that twenty minutes she had come to know that sound so well.

Garrus and Miranda jumped behind a low wall; Shepard ducked behind an empty Collector pod. The thing stank and gave off a sort of black smoke from inside. She hoped it was as strudy as it looked, because the Collector drones were already firing rounds at her. Thankfully, the pod held together and blocked the bullets.

Shepard waited for a break in the gunfire, then popped up from cover to shoot down a drone. It took four direct shots from the Canifex to take out its barrier – she fired two more into it's chest and the damn thing still didn't go down.

Shepard ducked behind cover as its fellows started shooting at her again. She re-loaded her gun, then stood to finish off the drone she'd been aiming at.

_What the hell?_

Shepard stared as the near-dead drone suddenly shot up into the air, its arms hanging at its sides.

_Hey, that looks like what happened to me when I touched that Prothean beacon,_ she thought, absently.

The figure was glowing, like its every vein had caught on fire.

Then it spoke.

Shepard had heard a voice like that in waking life two years ago, but she heard it in all the time in her nightmares.

_ASSUMING DIRECT CONTROL._

Shepard felt as though her blood had turned to ice.

_Sovereign_.

The Reaper-voice was just as chilling as before. As it had all those years ago, it felt like it was talking right into her skull.

Shepard winced in pain, then ducked behind cover as the Collector drones all turned their sub machine guns towards her. The glowing drone dropped to the ground, now radiating dark biotic energy so powerfully that Shepard could scarcely think. It crackled along her conciousness like static, drowning out every other sound but that horrible voice.

Shepard crouched behind the collector pod, looking around wildly. A few yards away Miranda lay in the grass, knocked out cold. Beside Miranda, Garrus was clutching at his side and his shields were down. _Damn it..._

_I AM THE HARBINGER OF YOUR ASCENDENCE._

The thing's voice sent another chill right down her spine. It seemed to snake into her brain, made her want to cower in stillness, to play dead, to hide under the covers and hope the monsters just went away. Shepard could almost feel the gun loosening in her grip, could feel fear taking hold of her like a paralysis...

Her hand tightened on her gun as her eyes narrowed suddenly.

She was afraid: truly, horribly afraid.

And fear just made the Valkyrie mad.

_EMBRACE PERFECTION._

"I don't want perfection," Shepard shouted back at the glowing drone. "I like things messy."

She jumped out from cover to warp the barriers of an encroaching drone and shot it, point blank, in the head. Two shots tore through it's skull, exploding some kind of puss all over her. Shepard gagged from the smell, then gasped in surprise as a second drone appeared right where the first had been.

"Garrus!" she shouted, hoping he heard her. "Knock this bastard down!"

She ducked just as a concussive shot sailed over her head, slamming the drone backward into a wall. Shepard pulled the drone biotically, firing several shots into its body as it floated helplessly over her head. It fell heavily into the grass behind her and did not move.

Shepard peeked around the side of the pod to see the glowing body of the talking puppet-drone stalking her. It threw a pulse of dark energy right at her and Shepard only barely dodged it, rolling forward into a somersault and landing beside Miranda. She grabbed the brunette by the armpits and dragged the woman behind a low wall.

_IF I HAVE TO TEAR YOU APART, SHEPARD, I WILL._

Shepard froze at the sound of her name. The Illusive Man was right: this was personal. That glowing thing was after _her_.

This situation, she decided, could be officially classifed as _really bad shit._

They needed to end this, _now_.

"Come on, Lawson," Shepard said, firing up her omnitool and applying a quick dose of medigel to the woman's bleeding temple. Miranda blinked, then sat up with a start, reaching for her gun.

"Here," Shepard said, handing her the fallen pistol. "But our biotics will be better against that thing."

"What...?" Miranda asked, looking dazed. "That thing hit me with...I thought I was dead." She blinked at Shepard, her blue eyes still unfocused.

"You might be soon if we don't kill that thing fast," Shepard told her. "Hit that glowing target there on the count of three. Got it?"

Miranda nodded.

"One, two...three."

The two women jumped from cover and fired identical pulses of blue-white L5 energy at the glowing creature before them. It stumbled back at the first blue-white missile, then crumpled under the second. Garrus shot a concussive round into it's chest and Shepard fired a bullet into its head and the thing exploded in a puff of ash.

Shepard stood there in the suddenly silent street, blinking sweat from her eyes. They had killed it that easily?

_RELEASING CONTROL._

Or not.

Shepard shivered as that same ancient voice sounded through her skull.

_WE ARE NOT FINISHED, SHEPARD. I WILL FIND YOU, AGAIN._


	30. Horizon 5: Harvest

_Chapter 30_

_(Harvest)_

_(Full credit for several of these Kaidan-related images goes to Jhosephine and her awesome fan art on Deviant Art and the KAAS. You inspire me, Jho!)_

_

* * *

_

Kaidan fought systematically against his bonds, mentally sending his biotic energy to every corner of his body, searching for weaknesses. The whole damn thing was seamless, just one great coating of power.

But he could not give up, not now.

They were everywhere.

They had been circling closer and closer for almost fifteen minutes, the red squares coming closer to the blue dot at the center of his radar – the blue dot that was labeled, simply, "Kaidan." And all around him, the green squares that were the colonists were disappearing, one less, then one less, then another and another. Kaidan struggled and struggled, pushing and pulling his biotic energy, trying to move it like a wedge to get himself free.

He had just begun to feel something give when he saw a movement. At the end of the street, they were gathering. More of the great creatures came towards him, walking slowly, two by two. They carried strange things between them, things that looked like great rotting pea pods – or organic coffins. Kaidan watched in stupefied horror as the monsters dragged a colonist to one of the pods: Sten, it looked like. They lifted the massive farmer as easily as a sack of grain and dropped him in to the pod.

Rage and terror, fear and fury hit Kaidan all at once.

Sten was alive, just as conscious as he, and yet the creatures had taken him, tossed him, still alive, into that dark coffin.

Biotic fire rose from his eyes as Kaidan struggled once more against his bonds.

* * *

Shepard walked slowly into the dimly lit garage. They had left a massacre of Collector corpses back in the street, but she was willing to bet that the gauntlet was far from over. She came to a stop beside a thresher just as a soft, clinking sound echoed behind her. Shepard whirled around, aiming her pistol at the shadows.

"Company," she said, sharply. Behind her, she felt Miranda ready a biotic pulse. Garrus' gun made a clicking sound as he readied a shot.

"Get out here," she told the unseen intruder. "Now."

There was a pause, then Shepard lowered her gun as a skinny, trembling man in a dirty baseball cap came out into the open with his hands up.

"You," he murmured, letting his arms drop, "You're _human_."

His wonder turned to angry fear almost immediately. "What are you doing?" he frowned at her. "You'll lead them right here."

"You had to hear them trying to get in," Shepard replied, not terribly impressed by the man's greeting. "Seems like it's hard to hide from the Collectors."

"Those things are Collectors?" the guy said, looking amazed. "You mean they're real? I thought they were just made up. You know, propaganda, to keep us in Alliance space. Naw," he looked at her, his face falling. "They got Lilith. I saw her go down. Sten, too. Damn near everybody." He shook his head, looking utterly dazed.

"I need to know what I'm up against," Shepard told him, immediately switching into her talking-with-an-unhelpful civillian mode. "Tell me everything you remember about this attack."

"We lost our comm systems a few hours ago," the man replied, frowning. "I came down to check on the main grid. That Alliance commander was supposed to come help, but he never showed up."

Shepard stiffened. Alliance commander? Surely that meant...

"Then I heard screaming," the man went on. "Looked outside and saw swarms of _bugs_. Everyone they touched just froze. I sealed the doors..."

"Wait," Shepard said. "Who was this Alliance commander? Was it..." She trailed off, not daring to hope that the man had good news for her.

"Commander Alenko," the man said with a sneer. "Heard he was some kind of hero or something."

Shepard felt her heart beating faster, both from fear and hope. He had been here. Kaidan had been _here_. That meant he was near. But that also meant... that he had been here when the attack hit. And if they hadn't passed him already in that crowd of frozen colonists...

Shepard shook her head. She couldn't get distracted by speculations right now. She needed facts.

"Heroes don't mean nothin' to me, though," the man was saying, shaking his head in disgust. "Would rather he had stayed back in Alliance space. He was supposed to help us get the defense towers up and running, but I got the feeling he was here for somethin' else. He got really jumpy when I talked with him about Cerberus this one time..."

"Cerberus?" Shepard blinked. "Why would Ka...?" She glanced back at Miranda. The brunette stiffened and looked away, her face unreadable.

"I think he was spyin' on us, maybe," the man added. "He gave us these defense towers – a "gift" from the Alliance." He made a disgusted noise. "High powered GARDIAN lasers – supposed to keep ships from landing near the colony. Only he couldn't get the targeting systems online. So the Alliance gave us a giant gun that couldn't shoot straight. Stupid sons of bitches."

Shepard felt her temper flare. "Why are you blaming the Alliance?" she asked, irritably. "Sounds like they sent you a war hero _and_ big guns to protect your sorry asses."

"We're just a small colony," the man said, nervously taking a step back from her and tugging at his sleeve. "Nobody bothered us before we started building those damn defense towers and started drawing attention to ourselves. I left Council space to get away from the Alliance. Nothin' good ever comes from getting mixed up with them."

Shepard's temper boiled over into a biotic flare that shimmered down her arms and snaked through her fingers.

"The Collectors are targeting remote colonies," she snapped. "The Alliance is trying to _help_."

"We don't need their help," he snapped right back. "Too many strings attached. That Alenko said he was here to get the towers online. But there's more to it, mark my words."

Shepard frowned at him. Either the guy was braver than most to face off with an angry biotic, or he was just too dumb and stubborn to know when to back down. Either way, she realized that thanks to her curiousity and her temper, she had just wasted a good five minutes in here and still didn't know anything useful about the defense towers other than that they didn't work. Immediately, she let her energy dim.

"If you have defense towers, we can use them to blast the hell out of that Collector ship," she said. "Where are they?"

"You'd need to calibrate the targeting systems first," the man told her. "Even the commander never got them to work right."

Shepard opened her mouth to speak, but it was Miranda who confidently said:

"We can figure it out. Just tell us where to find it."

"Head for the main transmitter on the other side of the colony. It's in the plaza. Pretty hard to miss."

"It's probably better if you just stay here, out of the way," Shepard told him. "Until the coast is clear."

"That's what I was thinkin', too," the man said. "I'm letting you out, but I'm lockin' the door behind you. I'm not taking any chances."

He fired up his omnitool and waved it at the door behind him.

"Good luck," he added as the trio slipped back outside under the bright light of the afternoon sky. "I think you're gonna need it."

* * *

Kaidan looked about wildly, his eyes burning. On his holographic display, he could see red squares approaching from behind him. Kaidan saw them surround the green square labeled "Lilith." Then the two red squares began to move away, and Lilith's green square went with them.

_Not Lilith_, Kaidan thought. _Not Lilith_. She was his friend – his only friend on this whole damn planet aside from Mark.

_I can't face Mark if I loose her._

Kaidan struggled once more, pulsing his biotic energy against the paralysis within him and the walls about him. He could feel the bonds straining, feel the dark energy weakening, feel his own powers like a fire all along his skin.

They were carrying Lilith away, and Kaidan had to stop them.

Then he saw two of the creatures walking towards him. Between them, they carried a pod. Smoke seemed to be rising from within it. Inside, he saw sharp ridges, like shark's teeth, row upon row of glowing gold.

His vision filled with a flare of biotic blue once again, but this time it was even stronger, fueled by adrenaline and the sheer desperation that comes from a place beyond fear. Kaidan's eyes seemed to be on fire for a moment, then, as if pulling free of quicksand, he felt the stasis field budge.

He blinked.

Kaidan fought harder and harder against his bonds. He could feel them loosening, though whether they had been weakened over all this time struggling or if he had finally found the weak spot in the chains, he couldn't tell. At this point, he really didn't care. He felt his fingers bending, curling...

_Clack_.

Kaidan cursed to see that he'd dropped his rifle. That had not been his intention, but the thing had suddenly fallen from his numb hands. At the sound, one of the creatures cocked its head. Together, they set down the pod.

And then, together, they both reached for him.

* * *

"It's odd that we haven't run into any more frozen colonists," Garrus noted.

"They've already loaded them onto their ship," Miranda observed.

Shepard tried to push back the rising fear in her chest. They hadn't seen Kaidan. They _still _hadn't seen Kaidan, and they were getting closer to the ship. That meant, most likely...

She wouldn't think about it. She _couldn't_ think about that.

Sending up a wordless, begging prayer, Shepard grabbed a thermal clip from where it lay on the ground, shoved it into her pistol, and hurried to the entrance to the plaza.

"Come on," she said, surprised her voice held steady. "We have to get those towers online. There's the targeting matrix, right there. Now we just need..."

The doors to the plaza slid shut behind them. Shepard didn't know who had just locked them into this wide, open space, but she realized at once that it was a trap.

Husks poured in from one corner of the plaza while Collector drones buzzed in from above. And from the far corner of the open field came two grotesque..._things_. They were like husks filled with puss until they had bubbled over and were ready to break open. One flailed a pathetic arm and a shockwave of biotic energy snapped along the ground before it like a line of firecrakers.

"Find cover!" Shepard shouted, running along the wall to her left.

"There is no cover!" Miranda shouted back.

"Then just find a crate and get down," Shepard yelled, ducking behind an abandoned grain truck.

"And get ready for the fight of your life," she added under her breath.

* * *

Kaidan blinked again, suddenly regretting that he could see so clearly.

The creatures reached for him with long fingers made rotting flesh and plates of bone. Kaidan smelled blood and meat on them and nearly gagged on the stench. He was frozen for a moment – frozen out of fear as much as the imposed paralysis.

And then he kicked loose with every ounce of power he had within him.

Biotic energy exploded around him. Kaidan pushed, fought, pressed outward, his hands clawing, his mind raging with an energy so powerful it seemed he would consume himself in a biotic inferno.

One of the creatures grabbed him by the arm.

Kaidan felt a crack in the chains.

The crack widened; the bonds snapped open.

He was loose.

Kaidan flicked his fingers as though shaking water from them. With the energy he had been welling up inside the stasis field, it was like loosing a dam. The two creatures flew back, hit the ground with sickening thuds. Kaidan straightened slowly, as though pulling himself free from concrete.

Amazingly, the creatures stood.

Biotic barriers, heavier and stronger than Kaidan had ever seen, flickered over their grotesque bodies. But Kaidan was beyond panic. He was beyond reason now, too, reacting on pure instinct. He threw a biotic barrier over himself as the swarm of bugs above descended upon him in a cloud. The roiling biotics kept them out, but they hovered over his body like flies above the Mark's compost pile. Kaidan found he could move his legs, and so he ran, or hobbled rather, into the nearest prefab building. His barrier began to fade. He pushed another barrier over his body and looked about the room desperately.

He was in Sten's house. He'd never been in here, but he guessed at once where Sten would keep his gun. And he was sure Sten had a gun. Rushing to the desk, he yanked the drawer open, tried to brush aside the swarm around him, to keep it out with his biotics. As he did so, he heard the sound of footsteps on the stairs.

Kaidan tossed the desk to the floor, as much with biotics as with his hands. He leaped behind it just as a round of bullets and a biotic pulse went careening into the metal, denting it. He waited for a pause in the gunfire, then popped up from cover.

Kaidan fired five shots from Sten's pistol, taking down the barriers of one creature. Then he unleashed a biotic kick on it like he'd never had before. It flew across the room, it's exoskeleton cracking from the impact of the biotics even before it hit the wall. It fell to the floor and didn't get up.

The other creature advanced on Kaidan, lobbing a ball of dark biotic energy as it went. Kaidan ducked behind the desk again, searching for a heat sink in the mess of data pads and OSDs on the floor. Nothing. He had one shot.

Kaidan jumped up and fired the shot at the creature's head. The shot connected, bring it's barrier halfway down. Kaidan then did something he'd never done before: he ran at the creature, driving his shoulder right into its plated chest. The impact jarred his shoulder and for a moment he thought he'd broken something. But as the thing fell to the ground, he managed to roll on top of it and his arms both seemed to be working. Kaidan whipped its giant head with the empty pistol. It's head snapped to one side, then slowly, chillingly, it turned its many eyes back to stare at him. A great, meaty hand suddenly shot out and tightened around his Kaidan's throat, cutting off his windpipe.

Kaidan gasped, clutched at the thing's arm. He tried to turn his head, but he could not. The stench of the creature nearly suffocated him. His eyes watered as his vision dimmed, and Kaidan began to fall into unconciousness.

* * *

"Targeting parameters at one hundred percent."

EDI's calm voice sounded over Shepard's comm link infuriating her with it's precision.

"Then get the damn towers firing!" she shouted.

She jumped out from cover to aim the confiscated Collector particle beam at the monstrosity before her. The thing was like a metal bug that had swallowed a mouthful of husk skulls. It would be almost comical-looking – it if hadn't started flying about the plaza shooting laser beams from its eyes. Shepard had decided then and there that if she'd been saving her fancy new gun for a special occasion, this was it.

"It's dead!" Miranda cried, dropping the thing with one last, well-placed biotic pulse. Normally, Shepard would have pointed out that as _she _had taken down that thing's armor and barriers almost entirely by herself, the kill really should count as hers. But she was simply too weary to do keep score right about now. The non-stop biotic workout had taken its toll and she nearly blacked out as she reached for the crate before her and stumbled to her feet. She scarcely even registered when the flying husk-laser-creature exploded near the overturned grain truck, showering the plaza with puss and bits of metal.

"They're pulling out!" Garrus cried, pointing at the ship above. "Shepard! The ship!"

Shepard's head snapped up. In spite of her utter exhaustion, her every muscle tensed, ready for another fight.

Only, there was no one left to fight.

The ship was leaving, leaving with over half the colony on board as prisoners.

And they still hadn't found Kaidan.


	31. Horizon 6: Embrace

_Chapter 31_

_(Embrace)_

_**Note**: (And I'm putting it here so as not to interrupt the flow once things get moving. The Horizon dialog could go a number of ways, as I'm sure you know. I just picked the options that seemed to fit Kyrie the best and went with it. Some convos I mix up a little to include multiple dialog options all at once, but this one I took pretty much straight up without any changes. It hurt more that way..._

_

* * *

_

The explosions startled Kaidan as much as they did the creature, but he didn't loose focus.

The creature did, however. The moment the thing looked to the window and loosened it grip, Kaidan punched it right between its many eyes, his fist shimmering with biotic energy. Then he grabbed the thing by the head and, aiding his muscles with all the biotic energy he could summon, he twisted it's neck as hard as he could. The sickening crunch echoed through the metal room and the body fell still.

Kaidan stumbled to his feet in revulsion, turning away at once from the hideous corpse. He felt his energy failing him. To his surprise and relief, he saw that the swarms were gone. Kaidan let his barriers fall as he limped to the door.

The great ship was under attack. The GARDIAN lasers were firing on it, the explosions rocking the colony with a sound like thunder. The colonists had gotten the towers back online, Kaidan thought, his heart lifting. Whatever this strange enemy was, his towers had worked. His towers had saved...

Kaidan looked down into the street and his heart sank.

Lilith was gone. Everyone was gone. He stumbled down the stairs and looked about wildly. Abandoned pods lined the wall of one building. The wind picked up, bringing him the smell of harvested wheat and smoke and the stench of rotting meat. How many had been taken? Kaidan wondered. Was anyone left?

There must be someone left, he thought at once. The towers were still shooting at that giant ship, firing round after round into the stony hull. That meant someone was at the targeting matrix in the plaza. He'd start there.

He took off down the street, glancing to the radar of his holographic display as he ran. The red squares were gone, the red triangles were gone – and the green squares were gone.

No, he realized with a surge of hope. There was someone left. Two green squares came into range on the radar – just ahead in the plaza, next to the defense tower grid. And there were also two blue circles. Kaidan felt like he could have fallen to his knees in thanks. Blue circles meant soldiers registered in his suits databases. That meant Alliance forces. They'd sent reinforcements, thank God.

Kaidan tapped his omnitool for a scan of ships in the area. He wondered how many the Alliance had sent. Perhaps one ship could stay and assist the colony while the others went after...

The display showed just one vessel, hovering in orbit above the colony:

_SR2 Normandy, frigate class.  
__Registration: Cerberus._

Cerberus.

Kaidan stared at the display, dumbfounded. He slowed his pace for a moment, then picked up speed again, breaking into a run. Cerberus was _here?_

So Cerberus had directed this attack after all, Kaidan thought, his mind racing wildly. It was like those Cerberus scientists and the way they had watched those marines die on Akuze. No doubt they were up there, clinically observing, preparing to scavenge the remains of the colony when the attack was done – though they probably hadn't counted on the lasers being here.

Or maybe, Kaidan thought, they were here for another reason entirely. But whatever their plans, he needed to get to the defense towers and warn those two colonists and those two Alliance soldiers. He just hoped the soldiers weren't green recruits. He'd need all the help he could get right now. He still had no idea how the Alliance had gotten here.

Kaidan let his eyes flick down to the list beside the radar, reading the names of the colonists and soldiers quickly as he ran. One of the green squares registered as Delan. Of course, Kaidan thought briefly. The guy was just too ornery to die. The other green square registered as someone named "Lawson," clearly some colonist that Kaidan had never met.

And as for the Marines...

Kaidan stopped dead in his tracks, breathing hard as much from his run as from stunned surprise. He stared at the display, then up at the towers, just one street away. His jaw dropped open; his heart started pounding.

It couldn't be.

It simply wasn't possible.

But as he stared at the display, he knew that his scanners could not be mistaken. They had the capacity to differentiate between identical twins, to determine a person's idenity from a long-range scan of organic tissue, even to pin-point illegal gene mods. So though the display was furiously blinking "Missing in Action," there was no mistaking the name that floated before Kaidan's eyes:

_Shepard_.

If he needed any further proof, the blue dot beside hers was labeled "Garrus."

Kaidan stopped staring.

He ran.

Buildings flashed by, empty and silent, a terrible monument to the attack he could not have stopped. Above, the great ship fired up its engines – the blast nearly knocked him to the ground. A roll of thunder sounded overhead and Kaidan felt a tentative drop of rain splash his face. He could smell the burnt ozone smell of the ship's engines, could smell the putrid scent of the abandoned pods. He heard, rather than saw, the ship pulling away, driven back by the gun tower's assault.

And yet, the only thing Kaidan really saw was one single blue dot in his display and the one name that flickered at the side of his vision:

_Shepard_.

* * *

"No!" Shepard screamed. There was no way to reach the Collector ship, no way to stop it from blasting off, but that didn't stop her from running towards the other end of the plaza as fast as her feet could take her. With her upgrades, that was pretty damn fast.

The sudden blast from the ship's engines knocked her backward. She shielded her face from the heat, even as her insides seemed to melt.

The ship was gone. And she still hadn't found Kaidan.

He could be somewhere else, she thought desperately. He might be frozen somewhere on the far side of the colony. But given that they had passed through most of the city and had not seen him, she knew that was unlikely.

Her mind began to race. If he was on that ship, how long did they have before the Collectors reached the Omega 4 relay? Could they possibly get through it right now, unprepared as they were? Shepard had no idea, but she was ready to try. After all, how likely was it that the Collectors would keep Kaidan alive for very long? She thought she had iridium for Mordin to build that heavy weapon he'd been talking incessantly about – the Cain, or something like that. That ought to come in handy for taking on the Collectors. If she could just...

"Let's go," Miranda said, her voice flat.

"No," Shepard replied, looked at her wildly. "We have to look. We have to find..." She couldn't bring herself to speak her hope aloud.

"There's not reason to stay," Garrus told her, his voice angry and grim. "They got what they came for. Most of the colonists are on board."

Shepard stared up at the ship, now a retreating ball of light in the atmosphere. It looked like a shooting star, only it was going the wrong way.

"Kaidan," she murmured, and her heart seemed to shatter inside of her.

* * *

Kaidan reached the plaza at last. There were collector bodies everywhere, their gooey innards exploded from their exoskeletons. There were two horrifying creatures that looked like a husk had bubbled over on itself, and there were simple husks, too, their empty white eyes staring at the stormy sky above. The corpse of some great, bug-like thing lay broken by the defense tower, and standing there in the center of all the carnage was...

_Shepard_.

Kaidan stared at her, almost unable to breathe.

It couldn't be her.

But then, it _had_ to be her.

His scanners couldn't be wrong. And that was Garrus standing right beside her. The turian had taken a bad hit, it seemed, but that was him. And the woman moved like Shepard, spoke like Shepard, hell, she _ran_ like Shepard.

It had to be her. But what she was doing here? How she had managed to avoid being frozen like the rest of the colony? Had she come for _him_? His heart beat a little faster to think she'd somehow found him, that she had rescued him – and the colony. For clearly _she_ had been the one to fire the shots into that ship, to get his defense grid working. How had she gotten the towers online with _her_ lousy tech, he wondered?

But somehow she had and somehow she was here – alive.

_Shepard was alive._

Kaidan stumbled into the plaza, his mind reeling.

That was Shepard, staring at the sky as if devastated. That was Shepard, glaring at Delan and telling him that she hadn't wanted the attack to end like this, either. That was Shepard, shifting slightly on her feet and shrugging her shoulders, moving in that familiar, athletic way of hers that was both charming and completely graceless all at once.

"Half the colony is in there!" Delan was shouting at her. "They took Egan and Sam and...Lilith! _Do_ something!"

"I did what I could," Shepard snapped at him. Kaidan knew that tone. She sounded angry, but there was an edge to the words, as if she was only just keeping herself from showing fear and pain.

"You did more than most, Shepard," Garrus told her.

"Shepard?" Delan asked. He paused and turned to face her. "Wait, I know that name. Sure, I remember you. You're some type of big Alliance hero."

Shepard opened her mouth to speak, but Kaidan stepped out into the open and spoke first:

"Commander Shepard," he said, walking toward her as if in a dream. "Captain of the Normandy, the first human Spectre, Savior of the Citadel." He spoke as much to himself as to Delan, as if saying her names and titles aloud would assure him that this was really her standing before him, and not some phantom come to haunt him.

"You're in the presence of a legend, Delan," he told the man. Then he looked back to Shepard.

"And a ghost," he finished, staring at her in wondering awe.

She shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the other, but said nothing.

"All the good people we lost and you get left behind," Delan said, glaring at Kaidan in disgust. "Figures. Screw this. I'm done with you Alliance types."

Kaidan didn't see him leave. He was too busy staring at Shepard, waiting for her to speak, to move, to do...something.

Only she didn't. Kaidan waited for her to make the first move, but she just stood there. The only indication that she had not turned into stone was that her wide eyes grew slightly wider. After an awkward moment, Kaidan walked cautiously towards her. Shepard started, took slight step back and lifted her chin.

Kaidan paused at that, a dozen questions suddenly filling his mind:

Why was she hesitating? Why wasn't she saying anything?

How had she survived the attack on the Normandy? How had she survived the fall to Alchera?

What happened to her _hair_?

How had she gotten here? Where had she _been_ all these years?

What had she been doing all this time? Why hadn't she told anyone that she was alive?

And why the hell, why the _bloody_ _hell,_ had she left him to suffer for years – for _two goddamn years – _alone?

With that thought, his wonder was joined by a swift anger that seemed to claw up into his chest, like a caged creature ready to strike.

Stunned beyond reason, Kaidan just stared. His mind was demanding answers, his rising anger made his heart pound. But his body knew exactly what it wanted. It wanted to be near Shepard, to reach for her, to...

_Hold her._

Kaidan's arms wrapped around Shepard and he bent his head to her neck. He didn't kiss her, just held her, pulling her to him as tightly as he could. She stiffened for a moment, then softened in his arms. Her arms encircled his waist, her hard armor bumping awkwardly against his.

Kaidan still felt anger roiling in his chest, but his body was completely content. For some reason, his body's wayward reaction just made Kaidan all the more angry.

"I thought you were dead, Shepard," he murmured accusingly. "We all did."

She said nothing, just buried her face against his neck. Her lips brushed the sensitive skin under his jaw in the lightest kiss. Kaidan's lips parted on a sigh. It was such a small touch, and yet, it sent a fire down every nerve in his body.

_It was Shepard. _

For a moment, for one long, glorious moment, Kaidan just relaxed and held her. His body pushed aside his mind's questions, just relished the way her cheek felt against his, the way her lips still rested, slightly parted against his neck, the way her biotic energy felt so...

Different.

Kaidan stiffened, breathing in sharply. As he did so, he smelled her, and her scent was different, too. She smelled like the creatures she had been fighting, of course, which was disgusting, but even past that she didn't smell like that soap-and-Shepard scent of before. She didn't even smell like her own perspiration. He couldn't put his finger on it exactly, but she smelled...different.

Kaidan started to pull away. Shepard let him go. She took a step back and looked up at him with an inscrutable expression. All about her, he could feel her biotic power: stronger, more weighty, and...shifted, somehow. He had sensed her power the first day he'd met her. Then, it had been a bristling electric static, like the air before a lightning strike. But now, her energy felt like the rain gathering in the storm clouds above: ice and water kept barely in check. There was a raw viciousness to her energy now that almost frightened him.

Kaidan gazed down at her face, searching her eyes. This was Shepard. He was certain of it. And yet...she wasn't the same.

It took him a moment to place the discrepancies, but he knew her face so well that he found them, one by one. Her hair was gone for a start: it had been cut to a mere centimeter all over the top of her head, as though she was a biotic cultist or something. Her cheeks were marred by faint scars, red lines crisscrossing like a web. Her freckles were fainter than before and the deep scar under her right eye was gone.

And her eyes were changed. They had been different colors before: one a greenish-blue and the other a bluish-gray. Now they were both the same light blue, or perhaps more gray than blue. She was wearing makeup, as well, and it was smeared all about her eyes like an Earth-raccoon. With her pale skin and too-thin face, it gave her a skeletal look.

_What happened to her?_ His mind broke through his body's stupor to ask. _Where has she been all these years? __Why did she leave me alone?_

The anger in Kaidan's chest grew stronger, like a beast, throwing itself against the bars of his ribcage._  
_

_The Shepard I knew wouldn't have left_.

It was Shepard. Kaidan was certain of it.

But she had completely and utterly changed.


	32. Horizon 7: Changed

_Chapter 32_

_(Changed)_

_And so the knife twists..._

_

* * *

_

He hadn't changed at all.

Shepard stared at Kaidan, relief, desire, and hope all filling her heart so full that she couldn't think what to do or say. When he had walked up to her, she had scarcely registered his words. She was too relieved to see him standing her before her for any other thought to register in her mind, but one:

He was _safe_.

Half the colony had been taken. She knew she would mourn the loss of all those lives later, but at the moment, all concern for the strangers of Horizon faded to the background. Kaidan was safe, and Shepard couldn't think about anything but that.

He had appeared as if out of no where, speaking to her – no, speaking about her, actually – as if he truly thought she was the ghost he'd described. She had been too stunned to run and greet him. She had just stood there, her heart slamming into her ribs as he turned and faced her, then walked close to her.

Had he always been this handsome? She wondered. Somehow, she knew he had been, but time apart had dimmed the memory. She felt off-center just looking at him, like a teenager gawking at her first crush.

She shifted uncomfortably for a moment, wanting to run her hand over her hair self-consciously. She wondered if he noticed it, wondered what he might say about it. She had never cared much about her appearance, but she suddenly wished she could have run into Kaidan under better circumstances – circumstances that involved her being freshly showered and _not_ smelling like Collector puss...

But then he wrapped his arms around her and held her – and she'd forgotten everything else.

His biotic energy was exactly the same: strong and thrumming and steady as the sun-warmed earth. She clasped her arms around his waist as best she could, given their bulky armor. She took a shuddering breath and found that he even _smelled_ exactly the same: the same aftershave, that scent of sweat that was his alone. He smelled like wheat and wind, too, which was unexpected and wonderful. Tempted by that scent, she pressed her lips to his neck, his stubble teasing her sensitive skin just like before...

But then, suddenly, he'd pulled away.

At first, she thought he was pulling away so that he could kiss her, but he didn't. He just stepped back and stared down at her with a very strange look on his face. His lip was bleeding, and she suddenly wanted to touch his mouth, to wipe that blood away, but her arms hung limp at her sides.

His eyes were still the same deep honey brown, but they didn't hold the gentle expression she had been expecting. Instead, they were wary and...disappointed? His eyes held some silent warning, and she heeded it, even though she didn't understand it.

Shepard licked her lips and just stared at him, feeling unaccountably shy and nervous. She realized he wasn't going to speak, that he was waiting for _her_ to say something. All thoughts seemed to fail her. She could not think of anything to say. She'd just fought through a vision of hell for her: an attacked, helpless colony, and her mind was still half into pure instinct mode from dealing with the battle. Her side still aching where a scion had sent her flying into a crate with a well-placed shock wave and she thought she had cracked a rib or two, but she figured she should probably say hello before asking Kaidan for some first aid.

Though she did like his particular brand of first aid...

Shepard shook herself inwardly against the track her mind had taken. She wasn't alone here, she reminded herself. Garrus and Miranda were standing right behind her, watching this whole encounter. And whatever Miranda saw, the Illusive Man would hear about. Shepard stiffened at that thought.

Torn between relief at seeing him alive, the complete numbness following physical and biotic exertion, and a strange, but growing sense of...embarrassment, Shepard took a breath and aimed for a lighthearted greeting:

"It's been too long, Kaidan" she said, thinking of the last two crazy months without him. "How've you been?" She gave him what she hoped was a winning smile, one that would detract attention away from her nearly-bald head.

Something in Kaidan's eyes snapped, his expression sliding quickly from wary to fury.

Clearly, that was the _wrong_ thing to say.

"Is that all you have to _say_?" he gaped at her. His eyebrows drew together and his lips curved downward into a deep frown. He shook his head and made a sound like a cough or a laugh.

"You show up after two years and just act like nothing happened," he said. His voice was raspy, tortured, even. "I thought we had something, Shepard. Something real." Shepard blinked in surprise at his sudden anger. She stared at him uncertainly, shifting slightly on her feet.

Kaidan took a breath like a gasp, looked down as though he couldn't meet her eyes.

"I loved you," he spat out.

She felt as if all the world had fallen away. Only those words remained before her.

_I loved you._

He _had_?

Tears sprang to her eyes.

He had loved her.

"_Well, why the hell didn't you ever say so before?" _she wanted to ask. The words were on the tip of her tongue, but before she could say them, the thought suddenly went through her head that he was speaking in the past tense.

He had _loved_ her.

As in, he _used_ to love her.

So did that mean things had changed?

Her heart, which one moment ago had swelled with joy and hope, now felt locked in an icy grip of hurt and fear.

"Thinking you were dead tore me apart," Kaidan went on, his voice raw, his every word laced with pain. "How could you put me through that? Why didn't you try to _contact_ me? Why didn't you let me know you were _alive_?"

Shepard stared at him, the answers to all those questions colliding in her brain. There were so many questions there, so many possible answers. She hardly knew where to begin.

Why hadn't she contacted him? Because she was trying to keep him safe. Because she had been dead, or...clinically dead – or maybe just in a coma. She still hadn't gotten a clear answer out of Miranda as to how far gone she had been. How could she put him through that? Hell, she hadn't _wanted_ to. If she could have avoided dying, she would have. And besides, she had been asking about him from the very start – only no one knew where he had been. The answers were far more complicated than the questions, she realized. And so all those answers seemed to get stuck in her mind, each blocking the others from getting out.

"Not my choice," she managed at last. "I spent the last two years in some kind of...coma while Cerberus rebuilt me."

A mask of disgust fell over Kaidan's handsome features and he stepped away from her as though she were a dirty thing.

"You're with Cerberus now," he said, his voice going low and cold. "Garrus, too." His voice was a near growl as he murmured, "I can't believe the reports were right."

"Reports?" Garrus said, his clear, turian twang such a different sound to Shepard's ears than Kaidan's raspy baritone. "You mean you already knew?"

"Alliance intel thought Cerberus might be behind the missing colonies," Kaidan explained. "I got a tip that this colony might be the next one to get hit."

_Cerberus?_ Shepard blinked. Her already jumbled mind tried to process this new piece of information. Alliance command had thought that _Cerberus_ was behind the colony attacks? But...she had spoken with Anderson almost six weeks ago. How could they possibly think Cerberus was behind it unless they thought she was behind the attacks, too? Had they really thought she was capable of...? Shepard shook her head, as if the movement would sort all the confusion into some sort of organized pattern that she could recognize.

"Anderson stonewalled me," Kaidan went on, "But there were rumors that you weren't dead. That you were working for the enemy."

At his words, Shepard's temper flared, her confusion burnt up in a flame of anger.

_Not for Cerberus_, she thought. _Never _for_ them. Not then, not now..._

"Cerberus and I happen to want the same thing," she said, her tone growing steely, "To save our colonies. But that _doesn't_ mean I answer to them."

"Do you really believe that?" Kaidan scowled at her, stalking closer until they were toe to toe again. "Or is that just what Cerberus wants you to think?"

Shepard was about to open her mouth to insist that she _wasn't_ under Cerberus command, that she was, still, now as ever, her own woman, an _Alliance_ woman, but something in Kaidan's words stopped her short.

_Is that just what Cerberus wants you to think?_

When was the last time she had made her own decision? She wondered suddenly. When, since all this had mess begun, had she actually done something that Cerberus had not anticipated? She hadn't rejoined the Alliance, hadn't gotten the Council's backing, and she hadn't left Cerberus. She helmed _their_ ship, commanded _their_ crew, wore _their_ clothes and was only alive and full of upgrades because of _them_. In all this time, she hadn't take a single step off of the path the Illusive Man had set down for her.

_But I did it for _my_ reasons_, some part of her mind dimly protested. _I chose these things because they were necessary – because they were important. I chose them because saving lives and stopping the Reapers is more important than me, than my reputation, than my career, than my life, even – than anything._

_And so you became the enemy_.

The thought shot through her mind like a bullet. She stared at Kaidan, shields down, completely helpless against the onslaught of anger he now fired at her.

"I wanted to believe the rumors that you were alive," he told her, "but I never expected anything like this. You turned your back on everything we believed in. You betrayed the Alliance. You betrayed _me_."

Every shot went straight to her heart. Shepard gazed at him through a haze of tears. She blinked the tears away, suddenly angry and disgusted – at him, at her reaction to him, at his reaction to _her_.

"Kaidan, you _know_ me," she scowled, hoping the tears didn't show, "You know I'd only do this for the right reason." She waved a hand at the colony about them, determined to justify herself in his eyes. "You saw it yourself. The Collectors are targeting _human_ colonies and they're working with the Reapers."

"I want to believe you, Shepard," Kaidan said, his eyes narrowing as he studied her face. "But I don't trust Cerberus. They could be using the threat of a Reaper to manipulate _you_. What if they're behind it? What if _they're_ working with the Collectors?"

"Typical Alliance attitude," Miranda muttered at Shepard's back. "You're so focused on Cerberus that you're blind to the real threat."

Shepard just stared at him, only just keeping her mouth from dropping open.

_This_ was the man who had once stood beside her as she spoke with a Reaper? As she fought and defeated one? _This_ was the man who had been at her side as she had pieced together the puzzle of beacons and visions, of rogue agents and ancient myths? _This_ was the man who, time and again, had told her that he believed her visions about the Reapers? Who told her that no matter what, he'd stand by her until she found the answers she was looking for? How could this possibly be _Kaidan_ saying these things?

Besides betraying his utter lack of trust in her, his suggestions simply didn't make any sense to her. Cerberus was pro-human, always had been. They would never work _with_ the Collectors to kill humans.

_Cerberus killed humans in the past._

But that had been different, she thought at once. Experiments and abductions were two completely different things. She didn't trust Cerberus, but there was no way that they were in league with the Collectors. Hell, she'd had to fight her way _through_ the Collectors just to get here. Kaidan wasn't making any sense.

"I can see you won't listen to reason," she said, disgusted.

"You show up after _two_ _years_ and tell me you're working with Cerberus?" Kaidan asked her, incredulous. "What does reason figure into any of this?" He looked at her, his eyes going distant and cold. It was a look she had never thought to see Kaidan direct at her.

"You've changed," he said, his voice now as sad as it was angry. "But I still know where my loyalties lie. I'm an Alliance soldier, always will be." His lip curled in a slight sneer and he stepped away from her. "I've got to report back to the Citadel. They can decide if they believe your story or not." He turned on his heel and began to walk away. Shepard stared at his back in stunned silence.

He was walking away? He was just..._walking away_?

In the past, Shepard had worked out seemingly impossible situations with clever negotiations. She had given speeches that impressed even the grumpier elements of the top brass, had been able to give clever off-the-cuff sound bites to the press that had only added to her legend and fame. She had always been able to charm people when she needed to, had come to rely on her silver tongue as a weapon almost as powerful as her pistol or biotics.

But at the sight of Kaidan's back, words failed her.

He was walking away, and she couldn't think of a damn thing to say.

_Don't go,_ Shepard wanted to scream at him. _Join me. Stay with me_.

"I could use someone like you on my crew, Kaidan," she called after him, the words tumbling from her mouth before she could realize how flat they sounded, how little they conveyed how desperately she wanted him to stay. "It'll be just like old times," she added, hopefully.

"No," he said, somehow sounding utterly defeated. "It won't. I'll never work for Cerberus."

He gave her one last look, a look that started at the top of her bald head, trailed down her body to her puss-splattered boots and then rose back up to meet her eyes. When Shepard had first met Kaidan, he had looked her over from head to toe before finally looking into her eyes. Back then, his interested, appreciative gaze had warmed her to the core, had sparked a similar interest in her. But now, his expression wasn't even remotely the same. The blank, empty look that he gave her was like he was looking at a stranger, and Shepard felt as though her heart had turned suddenly to stone.

"Goodbye, Shepard," Kaidan said, his raspy voice a mere whisper above the growing wind. Shepard heard it as clearly as if he had been standing right beside her. "And be careful," he added.

Then he was gone.


	33. Horizon 8: Rain

_Chapter 33_

_(Rain)_

_

* * *

_

The sky seemed to be weeping, shedding tears that Kaidan would not.

As he walked away, he felt the fall of raindrops on his cheeks, and he willed himself not to look back.

He _wanted _to look, wanted to see if Shepard looked hurt as he felt, or if she really was as impassive and heartless as she seemed. He wanted so damn badly to go back to her, but he forced himself to walk on.

She was behind him now, he told himself. If he hadn't been able to put her memory to rest before, it was because he hadn't known that she was alive – or what she had become. She was with Cerberus. She'd become a terrorist.

_The woman I loved and thought was dead was actually alive, left me, and became a goddamn terrorist._

How was a guy supposed to _deal _with something like that?

He couldn't, he realized. And he wouldn't. He wouldn't _deal_ with it at all. He'd just walk away.

And he wouldn't look back.

* * *

Shepard stood there in the plaza, her mouth hanging open, her eyes filling with tears. She felt like there was a hole in her chest where her heart used to be. It was as if Kaidan had just ripped it out from her ribcage and gone walking away with it in his fist – gone walking away without looking back.

"Shepard," Garrus said after a long, uncomfortable silence. "We..."

"Right," she murmured, utterly dazed. "Right."

She blinked and gazed at the sky beyond the defense towers. Lightning roiled through them, speaking to the gathering instability inside of her. She felt a drop of rain on her face, then another and another. For a moment, she thought they were falling tears, but they weren't. She now found that she couldn't cry. She felt utterly numb.

"We need to stay," Shepard said, dumbly. "We need to help these people..."

"We can't help them," Miranda pointed out. "We need to report back to the Illusive Man."

"That prick can go to hell!" Shepard shouted, flaring suddenly. "We need..."

She broke off and stared at the scene that surrounded her. Collector bodies were strewn everywhere in the plaza. Beyond, the colony lay silent.

_Kaidan has this under control_, she thought. No doubt he would call in Alliance forces for a rescue operation. In fact, if the Illusive Man was as good as his word, Alliance forces might already be on their way. And she had no desire to meet with any more Alliance soldiers just now – not after what had just happened between her and the one who had once trusted her.

Once loved her.

Shepard swallowed, fearing tears at any moment, but strangely, they still did not come. The only thing that remained in her was hurt and a growing anger.

"You're right," she said numbly. "We can't do anything more for this colony. We just need to stop this from happening somewhere else."

"Right," Miranda nodded. "We should go."

Shepard nodded and pressed the button on her suit for the comm link. "Joker, send a shuttle to pick us up." Under her breath, she added bitterly, "I've had enough of this colony."

She strode from the plaza at a breakneck speed. She walked as fast as a person could without breaking into a run. Given her upgrades, she easily outstripped Miranda and even the long-legged Garrus had trouble keeping up with her. Her eyes kept flicking between the road before her and the dot on her holographic display that registered as Kaidan. She saw that dot go further and further away from her, then drop off her radar entirely.

She wanted to turn around, wanted to walk back to him and somehow persuade him to come with her – or at least let her explain.

But she didn't turn. She couldn't. She simply couldn't bear to hear him call her a traitor again.

_You betrayed the Alliance. You betrayed me_.

She scowled as rain drops fell heavily against her face.

She wasn't a traitor, she thought. She _wasn't_. She could scarcely see for the torrents that now poured from the sky, but still she walked on, fury filling her, solidifying into a raw, roiling anger in her gut. Raw anger fueled her steps, led her back to the Kodiak shuttle. Raw anger kept her silent all through the ride to the Normandy, radiated off of her so powerfully that Garrus and Miranda didn't say a word, didn't even look at her.

Raw anger carried her through decontamination, gave her the strength to tell Joker to set a course for somewhere, anywhere but here. Raw anger made her snap at Kelly, made her tell the yeoman to shut the hell up and tell the Illusive prick that she would meet him in the debriefing room when she was damn good and ready, that she was going to take a shower and feed her fish and she _would_ use her biotics to systematically rip the genitalia off of anyone who dared to talk to her in the next twenty-four hours.

And raw anger led Shepard back to her room, ignoring her cracked ribs and growling stomach. She marched right up to her desk where Kaidan's picture flickered to life, gazing up at her in a way that she now could only see as distrustful and cold.

Shepard took a gulping breath and collapsed into the chair. She was soaking wet and leaving a puddle on the floor, but she didn't care. She felt like a tempest was welling up inside of her and yet, as she stared at Kaidan's picture, searching his deep, brown eyes for some sort of answer, she found that she still couldn't cry.

Shepard glared at the picture for a moment more. Then she slammed it, face down, onto the desk, and a vicious crack splintered up the back of the plastic frame.


	34. Horizon 9: Faith

_Chapter 34_

_(Faith)_

_(Flashback: captain's quarters, one month and four days after the Battle of the Citadel _

_– __five hours before the Normandy SR1 is destroyed)_

* * *

"I'm glad you came back," Shepard murmured, tracing her finger along the line of Kaidan's pectoral muscles. He chuckled and grabbed her hand.

"That tickles," he told her.

"You're ticklish?" she asked, grinning at him. Her lips quirked mischievously. "I didn't realize that. This has so many excellent...possibilities."

"You're evil, Shepard."

"Not evil," she said, shifting onto her elbow. "Devious. Tactical. Clever. But not evil." Her smile faltered a little. "At least I hope not."

"I was joking," he said, brushing his thumb over her lips. "I just can't come up with any other reason for why I keep ending up in bed with you..."

"Except to conclude that I'm evil?" she interrupted, her eyes narrowing. "How flattering."

"I didn't mean it like that," he frowned. "It's just that I keep telling myself that we need to wait until we get another shore leave, but then you walk by in that way that you have and..." Shepard raised her eyebrows and Kaidan broke off suddenly. "I'm digging myself in deeper, aren't I?"

"You are," she said, half laughing. "So tell me, why the change of heart in the middle of the night?"

"It's nearly morning."

"It is now," she agreed. "Wasn't when you showed up. Why, Kaidan?"

He shrugged, raising his eyes to hers. "I missed you." Shepard smiled at him and immediately wrapped her arms around his chest.

"Am I off the hook?" he chuckled.

"This time," she said warningly. Then she took a breath and sighed. "Truly, Kaidan. I wish we didn't have to do things this way. I don't want... But then I _do_ want..."

"Yeah," he murmured.

They lay like that for a time, staring at the ceiling in silence.

"It's not just about the sex," Shepard said after a while.

"I know," Kaidan said.

"I...We're... You know what I mean."

"Yeah," he murmured, draping his arm over her shoulder.

Shepard breathed in deeply and smelled the scent of sweat on his chest. She felt the warm thrumming of his biotics, a little dimmed now, like the sky just after sunset.

"Kaidan," she said softly.

"Yeah?"

"Tell me something about yourself."

"Something about myself?"

"Yeah," she nodded against his chest. "Something that no one else knows about you."

"Like what?"

"Like...I don't know," she shrugged. "I just want to hear something about you."

"Did you have something in mind, Shepard?" She felt his voice rumbling in his chest.

"Not exactly," she said. "I'm not asking for some kind of confession or anything. Though if you did have any fetishes or requests..." She broke off, smiling.

"Oh, really?" he asked, lifting his head to look down at her with a grin. "I thought we were supposed to avoid fraternization, not encourage it."

"You're right," she said, growing somber. "No, you're right."

"Something about myself, huh?" Kaidan shifted his head as he looked up at the ceiling. "And not fetishes."

"Well, you can talk about fetishes if you want. But if, for example, you start telling me about how much you like the asari, then I may have to kill every one that I meet just on principle."

"Asari?" Kaidan wrinkled his nose and shook his head. "They're nice enough, I suppose. The have nice curves and they don't hide it, but..." He shrugged. "I like you."

Shepard's lips quirked in a grin as she looked at the side of his face.

"Kaidan," she told him, "You are officially the sweetest guy in the galaxy."

"What?" he asked, innocently. "I like the way you look, Shepard. Asari don't have hair, for a start." He ran his fingers through the tousled strands and smiled.

"That's good to hear," she told him, "The entire asari race is now safe because you said that."

Kaidan chuckled.

"No, seriously," Shepard went on. "For a while there, I thought you had a thing for the asari. I kept watching you around Liara. I kept thinking that you must be interested in her. Then I just got pissed off because I was feeling jealous."

Kaidan chuckled, "You know, I thought the same thing about Liara and _you_." Shepard laughed as well, but Kaidan's face grew suddenly thoughtful.

"Okay," he said, nodding, "Now there's something you don't know about me."

"What's that?" she asked.

"I kept thinking I should say something about it, but I never did."

Shepard frowned. "Now you're worrying me. What is it?"

"Well," he made a face, then turned his head to look at her, his nose only inches from hers. "You know that day that Liara told you that she...had feelings for you?"

Shepard gave a rueful laugh. "Oh yeah, I remember. Wasn't expecting _that_, I tell you. Poor Liara. She'd been so sweet and I don't know if I handled it very..." Shepard broke off suddenly, realization hitting her.

"Wait. How did you...?"

"I was outside the door," Kaidan said, sheepishly. "I...ah...overheard you two talking."

"You _did_?" Shepard blinked.

"I wasn't eavesdropping," he said quickly. "Okay, I was," he amended, "But I didn't mean to. I was looking for meds for my headache. I didn't even realize anyone was in the med bay until I heard you. Voices carry from that back room, you know."

"Damn," Shepard murmured.

"Well," he shrugged. "There you go."

Shepard looked at him, her eyes narrowed, but in consideration rather than anger.

"So...?" she prompted.

"So what?" he asked.

"So what?" she repeated. "Come on, Kaidan, if I recall, there was more to the conversation than _that_. If I remember right, I told Liara that I was interested in _you_. Only I didn't realize I had an audience for that confession. If I had realized that..."

"Then you wouldn't have said anything," Kaidan finished for her. "But I'm glad you told her. And I'm glad I was there. You have no idea how much my heart started pounding when I heard you say that. I was sure you were going to hear it right through the wall."

He laughed and shook his head. "I got out of there before you found me and spent the next few minutes – well, days, actually – in a complete panic."

"Panic?" she laughed. "Why?"

"Why?" he asked. "Because I realized that the attraction was mutual and that scared the hell out of me. I valued our friendship. I respected you as an officer. And I had no idea how to go about turning what we had into something more."

"So you wanted something more?" she murmured.

"Almost from the first moment I met you," he told her softly, gazing at her in a way that made her feel like she was going to melt. "But it wasn't until I overheard you that day that I thought it might actually be possible. And that possibility terrified me."

"You were a little...different the next time I talked to you," she recalled. "You were very...insubordinate, come to think of it."

"Yeah," he laughed, shaking his head. "I'm sure I was."

"Still are," she added slyly.

"Yeah," he said, his face falling. "I suppose I am. Considering that I'm here, now, like this..."

"I didn't mean..." she winced. Kaidan sighed and looked away.

"Hey," she said, quickly. "'This too shall pass and all that, right'? We'll figure this out."

"Is _this_ figuring it out, Shepard?"

"I don't know," she said, honestly. "I mean, technically you're off duty."

"That's because I'm supposed to be asleep."

"You said you weren't asleep anyhow," she reminded him.

"True enough." He made a face.

"Hey," she said, "We're still making progress here. Just think how different things are since that awkward day when you overheard me talking to Liara. We'll figure this out, Kaidan. We've gotten this far, right?"

He gazed at her, consideringly. "How is it that you always seem to think that things are going to work out, Shepard?"

"I don't know," she laughed. "Blind optimism?"

"I don't think it's that," he said, looking at her closely. "It's like you go into every situation believing that things will work out for the best – like you could get through any battle or solve any problem."

"Well, sure," she said, with a shrug. "I have an amazing team at my back."

"It's more than that," Kaidan said. "It's like...you have this...faith in the universe, or something. It's admirable."

"I don't know if I'd go that far," she said. "But I guess I do tend to hope for the best. Better than the alternative, right?"

"I guess. I don't know. I don't think of myself as a pessimist, but I see the universe as a pretty random sort of place. Aside from physical laws, stuff just happens, and most of the time it's not really good or bad – it just...is."

"Maybe," Shepard conceded. "Still, I always felt like there was something...I don't know how to put it. Guiding things? Battling the entropy? Like the story to the universe was already written and the author had decided it should have a happy ending." She smiled wryly. "I guess that does count as blind optimism, huh?"

"Are you talking about God or something?"

She nodded once, then cocked her head to the side. "I guess – and mind you, I only had one course in philosophy at university and the professor was extremely weird – I guess I sort of took to that one way of thinking...oh, what's it called? It's the one where you take a leap of faith." Kaidan looked at her blankly and she shook her head. "Whatever. Anyhow, it's the idea that you find something to believe in and you just believe it. You make it true for you."

"That's..." Kaidan gave her a confused look. "Isn't that kind of like a license to believe crazy stuff? I mean, if I'm going to believe something, I want it to be true. Not true for _me_, but...true."

"Well, yeah," she said. "Obviously, you want to believe something that's _true, _even if you can't prove it. It's like...It's like my parents. They used to say they'd be together forever. But some days were tough. Some days they fought. But they had faith that they really were right for each other, even if it didn't feel like it every day. So, I guess I don't think of a leap of faith as believing in something that isn't true and wishing it is; I see faith as holding on to what you know is true, even when the proof is gone."

"Yeah, okay. But, I mean, if your parents weren't getting along for a really long time and they were always making each other miserable, shouldn't they just move on?"

"If all proof of their love was gone, then yeah, maybe they should," she agreed. "But if someone is important enough to you, you give them time. You have faith in them, and all that."

"Alright," Kaidan said, frowning. "But where do you draw the line?"

Shepard thought about that for a moment. "No clue," she admitted with a laugh. "I nearly flunked that class. Anyhow, I guess I keep thinking that everything will turn out to have some reason for it in the end - though I know I can't prove that." She shrugged. "Besides, I've found that cautious optimism serves me well. Caution keeps me and my crew alive, and the optimism keeps everyone's spirits up."

Kaidan nodded. "I can see that," he said. "And it's not that I'm not cautiously optimistic, too, I'm just..."

"Optimistically cautious?" she suggested.

"Something," he grinned.

They smiled at each other and Kaidan brushed his hand down her bare shoulder, then cocked his head to one side.

"So what about you?" he asked. "What's your big secret, Shepard?"

"Secret?" she laughed. "Oh, right. I was asking you about... Well, doesn't what I was just talking about count?"

"That's not really a secret, is it? Come on, I want to hear something about you that no one else knows."

Shepard scrunched her forehead in thought. "I can't think of anything," she said. "I mean, you already know all the things I never told anyone before. You know about the Blitz, you know about my...virginity."

"Which is very much gone now," he said, his eyes twinkling.

"Right," she grinned. "So I told you about the virgin thing and the wild-days-back-in-Basic thing."

"Yeah," he said, his lips turning down in a frown.

"Hey," she said, punching him in the arm. "I thought we got past that..." She blinked. "Okay, try this on, Alenko. Here's something I never told anyone, not even you."

"What's that?"

"Before I met you I'd never...Well, let's just say that even back in Basic, I never got to enjoy...I mean, you were the first person to..." She broke off, feeling a sudden blush creeping up her cheeks.

"Wait," Kaidan said, blinking in surprise. "I was your first _orgasm_?"

"Yeah. Other than...you know...helping myself." She felt her blush deepen.

Kaidan stared at her for a moment, then propped himself up on his elbow and looked down at her.

"Seriously?"

"Cross my heart," she replied.

"Not even your your old boyfriend?"

"My biotics..."

"That's bullshit," Kaidan said, his voice stern. Shepard blinked at him in surprise. "You mean to tell me that none of those guys even tried to make things work for you?"

"Well, no," she admitted.

Kaidan just stared at her so intently that she had to look away.

"Kaidan..."

He cut her off with a kiss: a deep, hot, utterly breathtaking kiss, that left her gasping.

"They should have," he said, pulling back to gaze at her. His voice came out low and raspy. "But I'm glad it was me." He leaned in and kissed her again. "You should have told me this when you told me about the rest of it. It would have made it easier for me to know."

"I didn't realize it mattered," she said.

"It doesn't matter," he told her. "But I do care."

She felt his biotic energy gathering, felt it pulsing around her. She tried to roll on top of him, then grinned when he pushed himself up over her and pinned her wrists to the bed.

"If I'd realized this was such a turn-on for you, Kaidan, I would have told you earlier."

"You have no idea," he murmured. He paused, looking down at her, his gaze taking in her face, arms, breasts, then raising his eyes to hers to give her a lazy smile.

"Kaidan?" she asked softly, looking up at him expectantly.

"I'm glad it was me," he whispered. And he lowered his mouth to hers.


	35. Closure

_Chapter 35_

_(Closure)_

_

* * *

_

_**Note**: Gah. Apparently this site had some issues about the time I posted the last chapters of Horizon. Perhaps it was trying to expell all that angst from it's memory banks?_

_Thanks to all of you who were so patient with no notifications, disappearing chapters, etc. For a day I logged in and 10 whole chapters and over 50 reviews had just...disappeared. Not unlike the Horizon colonists._

_So, writing Horizon was...brutal. I guess it was to read, too, from what folks said. And thank you, thank you for the many reviews. I really adore them – like digital flowers in a computer vase – only they're talking flowers that say nice things to me about Kaidan and characterization. Hmmm... that metaphor died. Anyhow, I love reviews, even the ones that told me that I am an evil person. That's...good? It means it managed to convey the awful mess that was Horizon accurately? Yes? Maybe...?_

_Okay. This story is going on much longer than I anticipated, but I just can't leave it...so...let's keep going, shall we? As long as you want to read and there's ME2 plot to cover and the muse cooperates, why not?_

_Horizon aftermath, here we go..._

_

* * *

_

Rain splattered down into Kaidan's eyes as he walked on towards the comm station. It soaked his hair, dripped from his chin, trickled down the collar of his suit to pool behind his shoulder blades. It fit his mood, he decided - and his scattered thoughts.

She had been alive. Shepard had been alive.

_How could she possibly have been _alive_?_

Kaidan heard a sudden roaring behind him. He tensed, turned around and readied his biotics, as he had no gun anymore. Then he saw that it wasn't seeker swarms or that great, rock-like ship in the sky over the colony.

It was the Normandy.

Kaidan stared at the silhouette of the frigate as it passed between a gap in the cloud cover – a gap left by the retreating Collector ship. The lines were exactly the same, he thought, as he saw a small shuttle rise up to meet it.

And yet, it was different.

Even from here, he could see the glint of gold paint on the black-and-white hull, no doubt the Cerberus logo stamped proudly on its side. It was much bigger than the old Normandy, too. He could tell that even at this distance. So similar, and yet, completely different - reclaimed for Cerberus' use.

Not unlike a certain commander he'd once been in love with.

Kaidan scowled.

_How could she be with Cerberus?_

He asked himself the question for what felt like the thousandth time, then turned his back on the ship. Behind him, the roar of its engines faded away, lost in the sound of rolling thunder and pounding rain.

If Shepard had been undercover for the Alliance, he could almost have understood, Kaidan told himself. If, after the Normandy went down, the Alliance had secretly recovered her, or she had somehow survived and contacted the Alliance, they might have asked her to stay hidden. It would have been useful, he could see, for the Alliance or the Council to have her presumed dead, to use her Missing-in-Action status as a cover while she took on covert missions for them. In such a case, it would have been her duty to avoid contacting her former crew members, even if she had wanted to. He could almost –_almost_– have forgiven that.

But that wasn't what had happened. She had contacted Garrus, obviously, so clearly she had thought to get in touch with some old friends.

Just not _him_.

Kaidan stomped along through the empty streets, biotic energy roiling over his fists. Garrus had been there. _Garrus_ had known she was alive. And Garrus had joined Cerberus, too. Kaidan had known Garrus to be a bit of a hot-head, but he never thought a former C-Sec officer would be able to stomach the injustice and anti-alien nature of Cerberus. And yet, the turian had been at Shepard's back as always. And then there had been some woman there, – a biotic. Kaidan hadn't missed the logo her uniform. She was Cerberus, too. And she'd been standing at Shepard's back – at the place where Kaidan had once stood. It was like Shepard had found some other biotic to replace him.

He realized, of course, that if Shepard had led that rescue, then it meant Cerberus hadn't let the attack on the colony. At least, Shepard and her new crew hadn't let the attack. Cerberus might still be behind it all, pulling the strings, somehow. He believed Shepard when she'd said she wanted to help the colony. She was always trying to save colonies, after all. But Cerberus could be up to something, could be using her.

Hell, he thought, surely they _were_ using her. The question was, how much of it had she agreed to?

Kaidan blinked, his anger pausing for a moment in its relentless pacing through his chest.

He hadn't thought to ask that. In all his anger at finding Shepard with the enemy, he never thought to ask her what the terms of her arrangement with Cerberus was. Clearly, Cerberus wasn't holding her captive. And she hadn't seemed brainwashed, either. She had been lucid, if...changed. He now wished he had thought to ask her why she'd joined Cerberus in the first place, why she'd left the Alliance or how she'd managed to survive that attack or why she'd failed to contact him...

_No_, Kaidan thought angrily. He _had_ asked her why she'd failed to contact him, and she'd said...

She'd said she was in a coma being rebuilt.

The thought instantly sickened him. He could scarcely believe that Shepard, Shepard who had always been self-conscious of her different colored eyes, who disliked the idea of genetic modification and once told him that she admired that he'd stuck with the older L2 biotic implants instead of going through a risky surgery to try and retrofit him, had allowed Cerberus to "rebuild" her.

_Well, that explains her biotics_, he thought disgustedly. She was probably an L4 now. He wouldn't put it past Cerberus to have stolen the prototypes for it. He wondered what other things they'd done to upgrade her. He hadn't thought to scan for modifications when she was standing there, but he didn't doubt that several of them were quite experimental.

So Shepard had sold her soul to Cerberus for some upgrades to her body and a new ship. And all for what? For the chance to stop the Collectors?

Kaidan paused at that. He looked around the empty colony, the rain pelting down on the buildings, on the half-harvested fields. The Collectors, if, in fact, that was what those things were, needed to be stopped. This couldn't happen again, he decided. He wouldn't allow it. As soon as he got to the comm link, he'd get hold of Anderson and he'd make sure Alliance command knew about this and that the Alliance and the Council mobilized their forces to take out the Collectors.

He just couldn't understand why Shepard had decided to go through Cerberus to get this done. He shook his head once more.

Shepard had joined Cerberus willingly – joined _terrorists_ willingly - because...

He simply couldn't think why.

He thought again of the experiments Cerberus had done just two years ago, of the atrocities they had committed all for their deluded, human-centric agenda. If Shepard had joined them, then clearly she had turned her back on everything he thought she stood for, everything he thought she was as a friend, a lover...as a human being.

Or maybe, he thought, he had never really known her. He had once wondered if his memories of Shepard were accurate or the invention of a lonely soldier who had built up a vision of perfection in his own mind. Now he saw the truth:

He had been in love with a phantom. And Shepard hadn't loved him at all.

Kaidan squeezed his eyes shut against the rain pelting his face. He was just glad he'd been able to speak his mind when she was there before him, that he had been able to tell her what he thought of Cerberus and what he thought of _her_. He hoped she'd heard him, but he doubted that she had. She was clearly too far gone into Cerberus' clutches to care.

And Kaidan had lost her more certainly than if she really had died all those years ago.

* * *

"Shepard, good work on Horizon. Hopefully the Collectors will think twice before attacking another colony."

Shepard blinked at the fuzzy image of the Illusive Man in the comm room before her. She had only just finished with a shower and had changed back into her utilities. Now that she was here, however, she rather wished she taken a little longer to cool off. She thought the shower had taken the edge off of her anger, but it hadn't. She was still feeling as furious as before.

What she was furious at, she could hardly say. She was furious at Kaidan, certainly, but she was also furious about what had happened to the colony of Horizon. Even as she washed the puss from her face, she remembered the fight, the empty buildings, and all those frozen people.

And they had been the lucky ones.

Most of all, she was disgusted with herself. She couldn't believe she had come all this way to save Kaidan – just to freeze up and lose him over some stupid fight. Only now that they were on their way to the Iera system's mass relay, she knew it was too late to go back to Horizon. So instead, she'd meet with the Illusive Man, choose a course, and make the jump to...somewhere – all while desperately wishing she could go back.

Only she knew she couldn't face Kaidan again. What he had said was true – all of it. Alright, so there were some pretty big details he was overlooking – details like being dead and being coerced and being brushed off by the Alliance and the council and feeling the need to keep Joker and Chakwas safe. She hadn't gotten to explain her reasons, but in the end, what did they matter? He was right:

She had joined Cerberus willingly and she was still with them willingly, and motives aside, that meant she had joined the enemy.

Shepard frowned at the guilt that now fell over her like a shroud. While few people knew it, she had been no stranger to that emotion during her years as a soldier. Guilt over surviving Mindoir, guilt over her actions at the Blitz, the continual feeling that her war hero status was undeserved, had all gnawed at her in the past. She put those feelings aside because she had to. But though most days her confidence drove her in full force, there were moments where that doubt crept back in.

Two years ago, Kaidan had taken the doubt away. With him, Shepard found someone who understood her when no one else had. By telling him about her past, the guilt became like a nightmare faded when spoken aloud in the morning. Now that Kaidan was gone, however, she found herself in the uncomfortable position of returning to a very adolescent state of...insecurity.

It was infuriating. She was Commander Shepard: war hero, savior...whatever. And yet she felt like she didn't know who she was anymore.

So for the Illusive prick to sit here and compliment her on what was now officially up there with the top ten most hellish days of her life – well, that was just too much.

"It's not a victory," she snapped at him. "We interrupted the Collectors but they still abducted half the colony."

"That's better than an entire colony," he said, his voice sounding infuriatingly cheerful. "And more than we accomplished since the abductions began." His eerie blue eyes seemed to flash in the holograph, and for a moment, they didn't look quite...right. Shepard blinked. She must be imagining things.

"The collectors will be more careful now," he went on. "But I think we can find another way to lure them in."

Shepard found her mouth had dropped open. She shut it and shook her head.

"Another way...? Lure them...?" She made a sound halfway between a cough and a laugh – not unlike the sound that Kaidan had made in disgust less than a few hours ago. "I should have known." She took a step forward, glared down at his flickering image in the air before her. "Kaidan said the Alliance got a tip about me and Cerberus. Was that you?"

The Illusive Man gave her a nonchalant shrug and took a drag from his cigarette. "I may have let it slip that you were alive and with Cerberus."

Shepard saw red.

"You put Kaid..." She caught herself, paused, and went on in a deadly cold voice. "You risked the lives of my _friend_, my _crew_, and that _entire colony_ – just to lure the Collectors there?" Her voice rose to a shout. "What the _hell_ were you thinking?"

"A calculated risk. I suspected the Collectors were looking for you or people connected to you. Now I know for certain."

Shepard sucked in a breath, dearly wishing the man was in the room with her so she could fire a biotic pulse at him. Watching that glowing Collector that had called himself "Harbinger" had given her a few ideas about how to adjust her warp missiles for heavier damage. She was just itching for something to try them out on, and the Illusive Man looked like an excellent target right about now.

"I told you I wouldn't sit and wait until the Reapers and Collectors gather strength," he told her, his tone sounding like he was speaking to a child. "Besides, they would have hit another colony eventually, and without a way to predict which one, they would have abducted everyone."

That was true, she thought, pausing. She did save some people. She had saved Kaidan. Though if it wasn't for this idiot here, Kaidan would never have been in danger in the first place.

"No more putting my friends at risk," she told him. "Ever. Or your 5 billion credit Valkyrie general is walking out."

The Illusive Man said nothing, just took a drag off of his cigarette and blew smoke into the air. Shepard's eyes narrowed. She'd take that as a "maybe." She suddenly felt tired. Yelling at this prick never got her anywhere. He just did as he pleased, jerking her around, and for all that she was pissed off at him, she was going to end up taking out the Collectors exactly as he had asked.

After all, having seen that colony, she knew she couldn't let such attacks happen again.

"We have to make sure they don't abduct anyone else," she said, wearily. "So what's our next step?"

"I want the Collectors stopped," the Illusive Man said. "Remember, that's why were doing this, Shepard."

"Yeah," she snapped. "I remember."

"I'm devoting all resources to finding a way through the Omega 4 relay," he went on. "We have to hit them where they live. Your team will need to be strong, as will their resolve. There's no looking back, now. And the same goes for you. Can I assume you've put your past relationships behind you?"

Shepard bristled once more, drew herself up to her full height.

"None of your damn business," she snapped at him.

"If it affects the mission, better you should leave it behind," he told her, snuffing his cigarette out on the arm of his chair. _He has an ashtray built onto his chair? _Shepard thought, absently. _Just how many packs does this guy go through in a day?_

"Shepard," he went on, calling her back to the present, "once you find a way through the Omega 4 relay to the Collector home world, there's no guarantee you'll return. To have any hope of surviving, you – and your entire team – must be fully committed to this."

In other words, she thought wryly, forget about Kaidan so that you can concentrate on walking into certain death.

"Thanks for the pep talk," she said sarcastically, "but we'll be fine."

The Illusive Man nodded and tapped a holographic display to his right. "I've forwarded three more dossiers. Keep building your team while I find a way through the relay. And be careful, Shepard. The Collectors will be watching you."

With that, the holographic image of the Illusive Man disappeared. Shepard rested her hands on the railing before her and let out a breath.

She needed some time alone – time to think this all out. It was now clear to her that she was going on this mission after all. Perhaps it was silly, she thought, but some small part of her had held out hope that something could be done to get the Alliance involved in the end, get the Council involved in the end. She wasn't afraid of the mission – no more than she'd been of any other dangerous mission that simply had to be done. But she was afraid now - though not because of the danger.

She was afraid of doing this mission with a team she didn't trust. She was afraid of doing this without Kaidan beside her.

"I guess we're really going to do it. Hit the Omega 4 relay. Take the fight to the Collectors."

Shepard started as a voice suddenly spoke from the corner of the room. So much for private time. She hadn't even heard Jacob come in.

"Lookin' forward to the action," the lieutenant went on as she turned to face him. "After what those bastards did on Horizon, makes you think..." He trailed off.

Shepard sighed inwardly. She was still furious, but seeing Jacob's obvious worry brought her back at once to her role here: she was the commander. She didn't like any of this, but she saw the truth of the Illusive Man's words: this needed to be done, and she would have to steel herself to do it. Even if it wasn't her choice to start with, she'd see it done.

"Something on your mind?" she asked Jacob as kindly as she could manage.

"No," Jacob said. "Just...there's a good chance we're not coming back, even if we get it done. Gonna go take care of a little...unfinished business. I imagine everyone else is, too. Getting some...closure, you know?" He nodded to her by way of salute and walked off.

_Closure_, Shepard thought, ruefully._ Yeah, closure would be nice. Only..._

Only, even as pissed off as she was, she didn't want closure.

She wanted Kaidan.


	36. The Other Half

_Chapter 36_

_(the other half)_

_Note: I think, to paraphrase TIM, the clues were there, buried in the data: it was all a Cerberus plot._

_Okay, serious apologies for the spastic nature of this chapter. I posted it, then changed my mind on the ending, then changed it back. Bad sage! Okay, sorry. I'm leaving it alone now._

_

* * *

_

Kaidan wiped the rain from his eyes as he entered the grange hall. The large, pre-fab building looked much like the rest except that it was twice as long, twice as tall, and had a stage on one end and basketball hoops on either side of the long, poly-metal floor. The lights were off inside and Kaidan's eyes had not even fully adjusted to the darkness of the room before he heard voices saying:

"It's the Commander!"

"He's alive!"

"Where's Lilith?" Mark came running over to him, grabbed him by the front of his armor. "Did you see Lilith? Delan said..." His voice broke and he couldn't finish.

Kaidan felt his heart catch in his throat. He didn't want to be the one to tell him this – not when he'd just lost the woman he loved as well.

"She's...gone," he managed at last.

The man's face seemed to melt away from the bone. He stumbled back, collapsed on the ground, his hands over his head. Kaidan couldn't watch his grief. He had to look away.

"What the hell happened out there?" someone demanded. Kaidan turned to the new voice and quickly sized up the group. They were all adults, mostly older adults. He suddenly wondered what had happened to the children. School had been out, so they had been everywhere in the colony that morning.

"You saw it yourselves," Kaidan said, his voice coming out low, raspy, and yet controlled. "They took half the colony. The only reason they didn't get all of us was because..."

_Because of Shepard. _Even as angry as he was with her, he couldn't deny it.

"Because of Cerberus," a voice said for him. Delan stood in the corner of the room, his arms folded over his chest. "I told you that Shepard was with Cerberus."

Kaidan glared at him, his biotics ripping through his fingers, but before he could say anything, someone else said: "Shepard? You mean...that war hero who was dead?"

"She wasn't dead," a portly man spoke up. "She ran off to Illium with her asari lover."

"Naw, she's with Cerberus," Delan told them. "Cerberus sent help."

"Cerberus did _not_..." Kaidan snapped, then caught himself as several faces turned to him. "Shepard came...here." He finished lamely. "She brought a rescue team."

He didn't know why he felt the need to hide Shepard's involvement with Cerberus from these people, but he found just didn't want them to know. It was because he didn't want them to think of Cerberus as the heroes here, he told himself. That was it.

"Where did she go?" someone asked Kaidan. "Is she still here?"

"She...left," he said. "She went after the Collectors."

"Collectors?" Mark said, looking up from his place on the floor, his face now ashen. "But they... No one ever finds..."

"I know," Kaidan said, meeting his gaze. "I'm sorry."

"You have to contact her," a woman cried to Kaidan, her voice rising in hysteria. "You have to tell her to find them – to find our..." She fisted her hands, the knuckles turning white. "My husband...and my son... They went out to the fields right after lunch and..."

"Robin, hush," an older man said, putting his arm around her. The woman broke off on a sob.

"Can we contact her?" the woman said, lifting a tear-stained face again. "Can _you _contact her? Can you tell her to help us?"

"I...think so," Kaidan said. He hadn't thought about it before, but he did have Shepard's old Alliance address. If she was with Cerberus, he doubted she'd be checking it. He wasn't even sure if that account would still be active. The Alliance tended to leave those things alone for records, but you never knew. He certainly didn't want to send Shepard any emails right about now, but if this lady did, she was welcome to.

"Give me the address," the woman said, desperately. "I need to tell her... I need..." She broke off now, sobbing into the older man's shoulder.

Kaidan watched her, felt his heart breaking for her – for all of them – and most of all Mark and for Lilith.

"How come you lived?" another man asked, suspiciously. "You were right in the thick of the ones that got taken."

Kaidan hesitated. His biotics had made these people uncomfortable before, but he felt they deserved the truth. So he said simply, "My biotics burned through the statis field. How did the rest of you get free?" He turned the question to them.

"I just could move again," the man said, "It was like it...wore off."

Kaidan nodded. He wondered if that had been time, or the effect of the Collector ship leaving.

"There are still people out there," the hysterical woman, Robin, said. "There are..."

"There are," Kaidan told her. "And we need to help them." They'd spent enough time worrying, Kaidan thought. The best thing was to organize these people into action.

"We need to send out search parties for the survivors, gather them back here at the grange. We'll all stay here tonight." Everyone nodded at that. They seemed grateful for the idea of sticking together, as well as letting Kaidan taking charge.

"I don't want anyone going out alone. We stay in teams and we all need to stay in contact via the short-range omnitool comm links. The previous colonies that got hit were raided afterwards, probably by pirates, so we're vulnerable now. We have the defense towers online..."

"We do?" Robin brightened.

"Yeah," muttered Delan. "How convenient that they come up now..."

"But we don't want to take unnecessary chances," Kaidan finished. "Let's collect food, water, clothes, blankets – whatever we need to camp out here for the next few days, and meet back here before nightfall. That gives us," he glanced at the window. "About three hours. We need to find everyone else out there before dark. Then we stay together and we stay near the comm link...Why are the lights off?" he asked suddenly, looking up.

"Didn't want them to know we were in here," someone told him.

"Okay, turn them on," he said. "I need to contact the Alliance."

"The Alliance?" Delan scoffed. "The Alliance? Mark echoed.

"What they hell are _they_ going to do?" Delan said. "Show up and scratch their asses?"

"They are going to secure this colony," Kaidan told him. "Help us rebuild."

"Rebuild?" Delan snapped. "We didn't loose buildings, we lost goddamn _people_. You Alliance assholes..."

"Do you want to help look for survivors or food?" Kaidan interrupted him.

"What?" Delan blinked. "I'm not going anywhere out there."

"You're going with Mark," Kaidan told him. "Mark, survivors or food?"

Mark looked up, still dazed.

"It's better to work," Kaidan told the man, his voice quiet. "Believe me, I know."

Mark stood as if dazed and swallowed. "Food," he said. "Because I know I won't find her."

"Right," Kaidan said, feeling all the pain of the man's words. He pushed that aside and divided the people into teams. The older ones stayed to help turn the grange into a refugee shelter, the younger ones went back out into the rain to search for survivors.

Once he was certain everyone had a task to keep them busy, to keep them sane, Kaidan went over to the comm link to get it working. To his surprise, the old comm link was fine. There was nothing wrong with the connection at all – other than that it would be extremely slow to send a message to Alliance Command. And he did need to get a message to Alliance command. He figured that his new extranet link would be better, so he decided to test it. Perhaps with the defense towers online, he would be able to get the new comm link online, too.

Kaidan got onto the public terminal, searched for area networks and found his new comm link.

The link was up.

He blinked at the screen, then shook his head. It was up, thank God. Kaidan quickly tapped at the keyboard, logging in so that he could adjust the settings. He brought up the extranet protocol log, scanned down the lines, then his forehead furrowed in confusion. He shook his head as if to clear it, then read again:

_Offline.  
__Offline.  
__Offline.  
__Ping from AVI-lab6-bank4-cpu497_.  
_User authorized.  
__Patch accepted.  
__Downloading patch.  
__Patch downloaded.  
__Initializing installation.  
__Installation complete.  
__Calibrating defense towers.  
__Please wait.  
__Defense towers online.  
__Calibrating Link.756/Horizon.  
__Please wait.  
____Link.756/Horizon _online.  
_All systems online.  
__Online.  
__Online._

Kaidan stared at the screen, dumbfounded, then read the log again.

His towers hadn't worked before because they'd been missing a _software patch?_

What the _hell_? Why in God's name hadn't the Alliance told him that they had a new patch required for the targeting software? Why had they changed it and failed to tell him? Kaidan wanted to scream at the computer. He had _asked_ the stupid installation team if there was anything he needed to know about. He had even spent an afternoon on the old comm link looking for patches when the initial software wouldn't work. The stupid system had _said_ it didn't need a patch, but apparently, it did.

Kaidan suddenly felt sick. The towers had failed to shoot straight because of an error in _his_ tech. And now all those people were gone - gone because this colony had no defenses.

But then again, Kaidan thought, looking at the screen more closely, that patch had installed itself – or rather, this...AVI-lab6-bank4-cpu497 - Alliance Virtual Intelligence - program had installed it. This update program was clearly too late. Talk about a government oversight. The Alliance probably had assumed the updates would get to him sooner. It must be the fault of the old comm link – though it was strange the patch had downloaded so quickly.

Kaidan shook his head. He couldn't have anticipated that kind of a glitch – just like he couldn't have anticipated the attack. Still, he felt like he should have.

Kaidan fired up the link and tapped in his authorization code for emergency connection to the Citadel, highest priority clearance. He'd never used the code before, and quite frankly, had hoped he'd never have need to. It was a full minute before the bleary-eyed face of Councilor Anderson flickered to life on the holographic display before him.

"Alenko?" Anderson murmured.

"Sorry to wake you, sir," Kaidan said quickly, "But Horizon has been hit."

"Hit?" Anderson blinked. "You mean...?"

"Half the colony was taken," Kaidan said. He paused. "It was the Collectors, sir."

Anderson didn't say anything. He cocked his head, then rubbed his eyes. "Collectors?" he repeated.

"Yes, sir," Kaidan said. "They've been freezing victims in stasis – some kind of biotic toxin, perhaps? Then taking them in pods onto a ship exactly like the one that attacked the Normandy."

_The old Normandy, that is_, he silently amended. _The new one just left town..._

"I..." Anderson shook his head "That's...incredible."

"Yes, sir," Kaidan agreed. "They use miniature probe drones – they look like insects. The Collectors are like insects, too. They're...powerful, sir, the only reason anyone is left is because..." He paused, not wanting to share this part, but knowing he must.

"Shepard was here, sir."

"Shepard?" Anderson looked up. His holographic image was blurry, but Kaidan could still see that Anderson's eyes widened. He sounded...surprised, but he didn't...look very surprised. "Commander Shepard?"

"She stopped them," Kaidan nodded. "She's...with Cerberus, sir."

Anderson just nodded. Now he didn't look surprised either. Kaidan guessed the reason why at once.

"You knew," Kaidan said, his tone accusing. "You knew she was alive and you knew she was working for Cerberus."

"I did," Anderson said, flatly.

Kaidan ground his teeth together. The still-rational part of his brain warned him not to say too much, but the anger inside of him wanted to demand an answer of the councilor, to yell at the man for keeping him in the dark.

"How did you...?" Kaidan began, then pulled himself back from the brink. "She..._left _with them."

"Of course," Anderson said, as if it was the most natural thing in the world. "I want you back on the Citadel ASAP. We need to talk."

"Yeah," Kaidan gritted out. "We do." He just hoped he could keep his cool when that meeting happened.

"I'll contact Hackett right away," Anderson was saying. "And I want you to talk to no one else about this attack – especially about Shepard being alive – until we can discuss this... Alenko? Alenko, are you there?"

Kaidan barely heard him. Instead, he slowly stood, gazing at the figures that stood in the doorway of the grange. The foremost figure saw Kaidan and froze. He firmly stated his name, rank, and platoon number, then shouted an order to the others. The Marines all turned to Kaidan and snapped off identical salutes. Kaidan stared at them, dumbfounded.

"Alenko?" the voice of Anderson crackled from the holograph. "Alenko? Are you there? Did we loose the connection?"

"No," Kaidan said, wonder in his voice. "I'm here. And so are the reinforcements."


	37. Really Damn Stupid

_Chapter 37_

_(really damn stupid)_

_

* * *

_

As Shepard approached the CIC, Yeoman Chambers looked up eagerly, her green, kohl-rimmed eyes sparkling.

"I saw the reports on Horizon, Commander," she said, nearly breathless. "What you did was...amazing."

Shepard's eyes widened as she stared at the woman. Kelly sounded like she was praising a good performance in a karaoke bar, not talking about the horror that had just happened on that colony. Shepard barely stopped herself from saying something cruel, cutting, unprofessional, or all of the above. From up here, safe aboard the Normandy, things probably looked a little different. She gave Kelly a curt nod instead and willed herself not to use her biotics to do the talking.

"The reports said that Commander Alenko was on Horizon," Kelly went on. "How did _that _go?"

_Did the woman have a death wish_? Shepard wondered. As she tried to school her features back from shock and rage, Shepard tried to think of who would have filed mission reports so quickly. Lawson, no doubt. Damn the woman.

Kelly looked at Shepard expectantly, her face drawn into an expression that Shepard knew far too well. She'd been sent to enough shrinks after Mindoir to know the "sympathetic caring face" so loved by the talk-it-through type of councilors. Shepard had no problem with talking things through... Okay, strike that. She hated talking things through– especially with people who had a degree in psychology. The thought passed through her mind that sadly, the person she most wanted to talk to about Kaidan was...well...Kaidan.

She pinched the bridge of her nose. She wasn't making any sense. Clearly, she was loosing it. Horizon had unhinged her. It was only 1800 hours, but maybe she should go to sleep early. She was exhausted. She tried to think of something to say that would get Kelly off her back and leave her alone.

"We've been through a lot together," she told the yeoman, trying to keep her voice neutral and calm. "I just wish we could have had more time together."

It suddenly struck her that there was a double meaning in everything she'd just said. Kelly, however, didn't seem to notice.

"Do you have strong feeling for him?" Kelly asked, her voice polite, curious.

Shepard blinked at her.

The woman _did_ have a death wish.

Kelly was clearly that bubbly, pep-club type of woman with whom Shepard had little contact. People like Kelly typically didn't enlist with the Alliance - or if they did, they either picked up a little sense and protocol during Basic or they washed out. Kelly's attitude would be fine in some circles, Shepard thought, but it was hardly appropriate on a warship. Still, staring into the face of a direct question, she found herself completely flustered. She managed to say something noncommittal and stupid. Kelly looked at her sympathetically and nodded.

"I'm sorry," Kelly told her, using that same therapist voice. "Parting ways with someone so close is never easy."

_They must train them to talk like that at psych school_, Shepard thought. _Pitch the first syllable here, the second there..._ Well, two could play at that game.

"I appreciate that, but I'll be okay," Shepard said, using her best 'I'm a good little patient and don't worry, I _am_ taking my meds' voice. "Anything I should know?" she added, trying to direct the conversation back to more business-like matters.

"You have unread messages," Kelly said, helpfully.

_What a surprise,_ Shepard thought.

"And Officer Lawson would like to speak with you," Kelly added. "So would..."

"Miranda can go to hell," Shepard snapped.

All of her attempts at playing it cool in front of the crew went right out of the window. Lawson had just been witness to a moment of extreme shame down there, and then the woman had written up the mission reports for everyone to see. Shepard had _no _desire to talk to Lawson about Kaidan, about Horizon, or about anything at all.

"Okay," Kelly said in a daze as Shepard stomped off. "Maybe we'll talk again later."

* * *

Shepard didn't even register the surprised glances of the navigator and other crew as she stalked down the deck, hardly caring where she was going as long as it was away from the yeoman. Her steps took her right up to the helm, where Joker turned around at once to greet her.

"Hey commander," he said eagerly, "It's...uh...pretty crazy the people you can run into out her, huh?" Shepard blinked at him, uncomprehending.

"I mean, it was probably a set up or something," he continued, "but it was still good to see Kaidan – I mean, Staff Commander Alenko..." He broke off as her expression darkened. "Wasn't it?"

"Another reminder of how I lost more than time," Shepard ground out. "I don't need this garbage."

"Right," Joker said, shifting in his seat. "Understood, commander." He paused a moment, then blurted out, "What the hell happened down there?"

Shepard looked down at Joker warily. "What do you mean?" she asked.

"Alenko and you," Joker explained. "I mean..." He hesitated. "I read the reports..."

Shepard stiffened. "Lawson's reports?"

"Yeah," Joker nodded. "So... Why didn't you try to talk him into coming with us?"

"Don't you think I tried?" Shepard cried. Blue energy exploded along the outline of her body. Joker shrank back into his chair. At his shocked expression, Shepard caught herself. She let the fires dim and shook her head.

"Joker, I..." She opened her mouth to apologize, then shut it. Clearly, she needed sleep – sleep would make all this make sense in the morning.

"How far to the mass relay?" she asked him.

"EDI just finished a scan of Watchman," Joker told her, still eying her warily. "I mean," he added nervously, "you were busy and all and the planet looked like it had plenty of resources, I thought maybe we should...wait until you were ready to give us a place to go. I mean you said to go anywhere, but the galaxy has a lot of "anywhere"... So, ah, it's an hour to the mass relay and then...?" He raised his eyes to her, expectantly.

Shepard rubbed a hand over her too-short hair. "Let's go to...Omega," she muttered.

"Omega?"

"It's as good a place as any," she shrugged. "Goodnight, Joker."

"Right," he said, frowning after her as she walked away. "Backtracking back to Omega. Great idea. And backtracking in everything else as well." He shook his head and leaned forward to set a course for the relay.

"Soldiers in love can be really damn stupid," he muttered to himself.

* * *

Shepard walked into her bedroom, her eyes immediately flicking to the frame that lay face down on the desk.

She wondered if she'd broken it.

She rubbed her forehead against the buzzing headache beginning in her skull. She didn't care if she _had _broken it. Right now, the fish needed feeding, she needed rest, but first, she was tempted to send a message to Anderson asking him what the _hell_ he was thinking not telling her that the Alliance had thought Cerberus was behind the colony attacks.

When she sat down at her desk, she heard a pathetic little squeak, like someone had stepped on an electronic mouse. It came from the picture frame. Shepard almost picked the frame up to check on it, to see if the front had split in half just like the back, but she paused, then pulled her hand away. She didn't need to look at Kaidan right now - just like she didn't need to _think_ about Kaidan right now. She really, _really _didn't need to think about Kaidan right now.

She opened the computer, now wondering if she should write to Anderson after all. She was too angry to form a coherent argument, as evidenced by her amazing verbal display earlier on Horizon. Hell, her performances on the command deck just now hadn't been much better. She was acting childish and she knew it. The thought made her even more petulant, but it also made her give up any illusions of writing to Anderson at the moment. If she wanted to have any chance at all at making the Council see sense about the Collectors and the Reapers, she needed to organize her evidence and then present it clearly, calmly, and rationally. If Anderson had thought Cerberus was behind the colony attacks, then Shepard knew she had a long battle ahead of her in convincing the Alliance and the Council to mobilize against the Collectors. She was beginning to doubt that she _could _convince them. After all, they still thought she was insane because of her warnings about the Reapers.

Yet another good reason not to write an email when tired, she thought, staring blankly at her inbox. It wasn't unlike one's family, really. You could be the goddamn savior of the galaxy, and they would still only see you as a pale-haired little girl with braces and braids. In the Alliance, she would forever be the N7 war hero – a biotic soldier made good, an excellent candidate for the front lines, but not someone who should be advising or choosing missions for the fleet. And even if she _could _get Anderson to see that his little baby soldier had all grown up and was taking on the Reapers, the top brass most certainly would not. They would tie his hands as surely as they had done over Saren. The Council would be even worse. To them, she might be a Spectre, but she was still...human.

Shepard let her eyes focus on her inbox and saw she had several messages waiting for her. One was from the consort, Shi'iera. Just seeing the woman's name made Shepard feel a little...slimy. She knew the consort was quite the celebrity, but the few times they had spoken, the asari had always gotten a little too...grabby...for her comfort. Another email was from Talitha, the slave girl Shepard had rescued two years ago on the Citadel. That message made Shepard smile and then frown and then smile. She was glad the girl was getting help, but the trauma that Talitha had endured was unspeakable.

_This is why you do what you do,_ Shepard reminded herself, opening another email, titled "Can You Help?" _You fight the good fight so that what happened on Mindoir doesn't happen anywhere..._

The email had come from an extranet terminal on Horizon.

_Else._

_

* * *

_

_They weren't going to do anything_, Kaidan thought, pinching the bridge of his nose.

His headache was growing worse with the change in pressure and his growing sense of frustration didn't make him feel any better. He stared out of the frigate's windows as the egg-shell colored rooftops of the pre-fab buildings grew smaller and smaller below him. For a brief moment, they looked like a scattering of dirty sugar cubes among the gold of Horizon's fields, then the colony faded away behind a blanket of cloud.

Kaidan steeled himself as the ship shifted from the planet's gravity to it's own artificial gravity. Streaks of gold and pink went by the window as the ship punched through the silicone-laced atmosphere out into the black void of space. Tiny pinpoints of stars twinkled above the curve of the planet below, back lit by the Sol-like star Iera. Kaidan glanced through his reflection in the window and thought back again to the mess he was leaving behind.

Kaidan hadn't wanted to leave Horizon. He wanted to stay and put the pieces together - to help the colony rebuild. But Anderson had given the order to return to the Citadel, so Kaidan had packed up his makeshift reports and packed his single duffel bag and boarded the frigate that had arrived this eveing at nightfall, less than twelve hours after the attack had begun.

And so here he was, full of more questions than answers, on his way to the Citadel to report to Anderson on what had happened on Horizon.

Only Kaidan still had no idea what had happened on Horizon.

He still couldn't make sense of it. There had to be something he was missing, something that Anderson would explain when they met. As far as Kaidan could tell, the whole damn rescue operation just didn't add up. The rescue team, for a start, had not been what he was expecting. They had come on a fully-stocked cruiser - a giant supply crate with engines. A top security message had instructed them to re-route from the Mars Naval Depot and come out to the traverse at once. The captain had done so without question. This was his first posting and he hadn't wanted to mess things up by ignoring a direct order from the Citadel. He was the only soldier with any combat experience on the whole ship. Half of the crew were reserves, just out on a three-week run as a part of their university scholarship program. Most of them had been more horrified at the sight of the empty buildings than the colonists had been.

Even more troubling than the rescue team's lack of experience was the fact that, according to Anderson, there had been no authorization to send in a rescue ship at all. The Alliance had no record of sending a distress call, and upon review, the captain couldn't find any record of it either. Kaidan believed the guy, but he doubted anyone else would. It was like the cruiser hadn't logged the message in it's databanks – like the distress call had never even happened.

The brass were furious to hear that a large, heavily stocked ship, had gone off into the traverse for nothing. Kaidan had done his best to defend the captain when talking to Admiral Hackett, but he wondered how much help his word would be. Alliance command was clearly not pleased with the situation. Only after much pleading did Kaidan convince Hackett to allow the cruiser to leave supplies and aid for the colony at all. He suspected Anderson might have had something to do with the final authorization. The cruiser was granted leave to supply the colony and take any refugees who wanted passage back to Earth. Almost all of the colonists had opted to stay. Kaidan admired that, even as the Alliance's reaction to their plight meant that they closed ranks around their own and cut him out. They ignored him and the Marines as much as they could for the rest of the day.

The cruise was given orders to return to Mars by the end of the week, and Kaidan was given orders to return to the Citadel immediately.

Though Kaidan understood the Alliance's caution regarding the cruiser, Kaidan simply could not understand why the brass had refused to send a team to investigate Horizon. They finally had a lead on what was causing the disappearances that had plagued human colonies for...well, possibly two years, now. Two years, that is, if all the deserted settlements had been the Collectors doing, which it now appeared that it had been.

Kaidan tapped on his omnitool and looked through his files again. He had done what he could to collect evidence to take back to Anderson, but proof of the Collectors involvement was shaky at best. He had set up the security cams in the plaza – the only recorded spot in the colony. The vids were fuzzy, however, and they had no sound. The Collectors looked like guys in rubber suits, and the glowing one gave off such murky dark energy that it was just a blur on the screen. They didn't look anything like the monsters they were up close.

The worst of it was, he never had the chance to switch on his suit's data recorders before the attack began. He had gotten his computers up, but none of the information had been saved. Kaidan had no gene scans of the Collectors, no radar readouts of the colonists being abducted. He had no gene scans of Shepard, either, should he need to prove that he had, in fact, seen her. He supposed he should feel grateful that the stasis field hadn't fried his suit's computers altogether, but mostly he just felt like kicking himself.

He did have another piece of information, too. But like the rest of his information, there was no real proof for it. The captain of the cruiser swore that he had gotten the distress call from Horizon at 0900 hours on the day of the attack. Though the message was gone, he was sure he remembered the time right.

If that was correct, Kaidan reasoned, then that meant that the distress call had gone out just after Horizon's old comm system went offline. Someone had contacted the cruiser for aid almost two hours _before _the attack had begun.

Kaidan hardly knew what to make of it, but he highly suspected Cerberus was behind the call. Who else would have the tech or the intel to hack the Alliance's secure comm system? It was also possible that Cerberus had been monitoring the Collectors and so knew the attack was coming. But what he couldn't understand was why they had sent for help. Clearly the Collectors had not made that call. But he could see little more reason for Cerberus to make the call either. He wondered if the call had been Shepard's doing, but if it was, then she'd done a shitty job at picking her rescue team. She should have asked for reinforcements from the entire Alliance fleet.

Then again, he thought, maybe she was worried about the Alliance finding her with Cerberus. The Alliance probably wouldn't have taken kindly to finding her there with terrorists. A single cruiser could resupply the colony, but did not have the resources to chase down a frigate. Or maybe she had guessed how little help the Alliance would send.

Maybe, he thought, that was why she had joined Cerberus. Maybe she had lost faith in the Alliance.

And that, he thought angrily, was why he had completely lost faith in _her_.

* * *

Shepard swallowed and read the email:

_Commander:_

_The Alliance soldier here gave me this contact information – I hope this reaches you._

_You said you were trying to stop those Collectors. They took my son and brother. Have you found them? Do you know where they are? I know you're looking, but so many people are just gone. Every family lost someone. The children are the worst. Empty desks at the schools, winter clothes that never got worn..._

Shepard closed her eyes. She could see her home of Mindoir all over again: her classmates, screaming, frightened. The teacher burned as the batarians beat at the children, shoved them into cages...

They always took the children first.

_Please. The Alliance isn't doing anything. The Council__ isn't doing anything. If you can find our people, I'm begging you to do something. Tell me something I can do.  
_

_Tell me anything._

_- Robyn Reeve_

Shepard felt tears in her eyes and brushed them aside.

Well, there was her answer about the Alliance. They weren't going to do anything about Horizon. She couldn't say she was surprised, but she still felt like punching the wall. She knew why the Alliance wasn't doing anything. These colonists were out in unauthorized space, deliberately avoiding Council government. It wasn't unlike the Ancient West on Earth: the first settlers in always got the worst of it. But that didn't make it right, she thought. For the Alliance to ignore the problem - it reminded her far too much of arguments she had heard about Mindoir – and Mindoir had actually been in Alliance space.

No one else was doing anything, Shepard thought, so she would have to be the one to do it. The Illusive Man was using her – true. Cerberus was just as nasty as always – very damn likely. But she had a crew that had staked their lives on this. There were people who had been taken: it was possible they were still alive. There were families out there mourning and thousands more people at risk.

And now she knew what the enemy looked like. They looked like walking cockroaches. It was disgusting and comical at the same time.

_So this is it then_, Shepard thought. She had always believed in leaps of faith, so this was it. This was her leaping. She sighed and shook her head. She would get this Collector mission done, then worry about cutting ties with Cerberus after.

And she'd worry about Kaidan after that.

Shepard glanced at the email from Horizon once again, noticing something she had missed the first time she'd read the colonist's message:

_The Alliance soldier here gave me this contact information – I hope this reaches you._

That "Alliance soldier" must have been Kaidan, Shepard thought with a frown. So he had given out her old email address – it appeared Cerberus had taken the liberty of forwarding her messages from her Alliance account – and yet he hadn't had the decency to send a message himself? Not, she reminded herself, that she wanted him to. She had been yelled at enough today without coming back to the ship to find his accusations set down for her in print.

Well, she realized, she needed to compose an answer to this Robyn Reeve. She only wished she had something helpful to say.

_Dear Ms. Reeve,_

_I'm sorry for what happened to you – to the whole colony. As a child on Mindoir, I lost my family as well, so I can only imagine what you – all of you – are going through._

_As for what you can do, please pray for my crew, or meditate or whatever it is that you believe in. Please tell the rest of the colony – and Commander Alenko - that I'm doing what I can to stop the Collectors and save those that were lost._

_This account you have contacted is not secure and I will likely be unable to contact anyone for long periods of time. I will let you know what I can, when I can._

_Sincerest sympathies,_

_K. Shepard_

It was bitter to write such a message, she thought. She hated to sound like the damn Council, all promises and no action.

_So make it action, Valkyrie_, she thought to herself.

Her eyes narrowed.

She planned to.

With that, Shepard looked to the next message on the list:

_From: Illusive Man  
__Dossier: Quarian Machinist_

Well now, Shepard thought, raising an eyebrow, that actually sounded useful. A quarian would be a welcome addition to the crew, and if he or she was anywhere as good a technician as Tali had been...

_Full Name: Tali'Zorah vas Neema  
__- Expert in combat tech, system hacking  
__- Strong engineering background, familiar with Normandy_

Shepard leaned forward in her seat.

Tali'Zorah? As in... Tali'Zorah nar Rayya? She read on:

_Formerly listed as Tali'Zorah nar Rayya, the quarian earned her adult name after helping Shepard defeat Saren two years ago._

Shepard grinned. It _was_ Tali. So the Illusive Man wanted her to recruit Tali? That was...curious.

She paused, leaning back in her chair once more.

The Illusive Man wanted her to have Tali by her side? Shepard wondered why. Given how badly her meeting with Kaidan had gone and the Illusive Man's advice to "leave her past relationships behind her," she had gotten the distinct impression that he was trying to force her to cut ties with her friends – to isolate her on a ship full of strangers. And yet, she thought, she did have Joker with her, and Chakwas – and Garrus, come to that. Okay, so the Illusive Man hadn't known about Garrus. But maybe he wasn't trying to keep her from her former allies after all. Maybe he had thought Kaidan could be recruited, but when that failed, wanted her to remain strong so that she might have a better chance of succeeding in this mission.

_Sure_, she reminded herself, _and I'm sure that thresher maw acid feels really good when flowing through your veins. Let's ask the Marines that Cerberus experimented on, shall we?_

It was, however, really easy to forget about all that when she was working with Cerberus day in and day out. And _that _was what she found the most disturbing at all - that there were times when she almost could see their reasoning, almost thought they were watching out for her. There were times when she almost...trusted them.

God, no wonder Kaidan hadn't trusted her. How could she even be thinking like this? Her mouth set in a grim line. She was going to have to be even more careful going forward not to fall into their trap. She would be fair, but guarded, friendly, but remain aloof from them. She was working _with _them, she reminded herself. She was not now, nor would she ever, work _for _them. She wouldn't. She _couldn't_.

But at least she knew she could trust Tali, regardless of the Illusive Man's stamp of approval. One big stumbling block was over between her and the quarian, too: Tali knew Shepard was alive – they had met on Freedon's Progress. And, unlike Kaidan, when Tali had found out that Shepard was working with Cerberus, she hadn't seemed _too_ upset about it - much. Shepard finished reading the dossier:

_Tali is currently on assignment for the Migrant Fleet Admiralty Board on Haestrom, deep in geth controlled space._

Shepard blinked. Geth controlled space? She read the message again, then quickly searched the extranet for information on Haestrom. She found a brief Alliance advisory about the planet and its dying parent star, Dholen.

She felt her stomach knot.

Suddenly, Kaidan's words on Horizon didn't seem to matter quite so much. She had managed to save him, and even if he hated her, even if she never saw him again, she had managed to save him. But now it looked like another friend needed rescuing, and Shepard might not reach her in time.

_Forget reunions,_ Shepard thought to herself. _Forget how people react to you and Cerberus. The only damn thing that matters now is keeping your friends safe._

She hit the comm link so hard that it screeched with feedback.

"Damn!" She heard Joker's voice shout at her.

"Joker," she snapped, "How far are we from the mass relay?"

"Uh...twenty minutes out, comman..."

"Set a course for Haestrom," she told him. "I'm sending you the coordinates now."

"Wait. That's is on the Far Rim..."

"That's right."

"So we're going some place nice for a change?" Joker teased. "Sounds like fun. Who are we recruiting this time? Some baby-eating batarian?"

"Tali's out there and she's in trouble," Shepard told him, flatly.

There was a pause, then:

"Aye, aye, commander. As fast as we can."

* * *

_(I know, it's not THE email. But Shepard doesn't get it right away, I realized. So, I guess Kaidan was busy or...something...)_


	38. The View from Here

_Chapter 38_

_(the view from here)_

_(I must be playing/reading too much ME2, because I honest-to-goodness had a nightmare similar to Kyrie's the other night. It was horrifying. So, of course, I used it in the fic. Waste not, want not.)_

_

* * *

_

Shepard stood before Kaidan. She smiled at him, her different colored eyes twinkling, her golden hair caught up in the breeze. She smelled like soap and like...Shepard. Kaidan breathed in; she smelled so damn good. Her energy felt warm and electric around him, alive as her heartbeat.

Kaidan took her by the arm and drew her to him. There was no armor to separate them, no one standing around watching them. Shepard wrapped her arms around his waist, leaned in and kissed him along the soft skin of his jaw. Kaidan felt his pulse leap into triple time under the gentle pressure of her mouth. He exhaled, gripped her arms more tightly, thinking how he would pull away and tip her chin up with his hand, then bend down, drive his tongue into her mouth and...

_BAM!_

Kaidan shot forward in his seat, coming up short against the restraining harness that held him into place. He gasped for breath, then looked around, bleary-eyed and confused.

Where the hell was he?

_All hands to stations, _a voice crackled over the comm. _We have reached docking bay 36, Chandrasekhar fuel depot._ _Refueling stop for 30 minutes. Off duty staff may disembark. Please return to ship at 1200 hours. Staff Commander Alenko, please report to the bridge for instructions from Alliance Command._

Kaidan glared up at the intercom over his head, then looked back down at his chest. He had strapped in at the beginning of the flight, then completely passed out. He didn't know how long he'd been sleeping, but he was still exhausted and he could feel a headache coming on.

But instead of pinching the bridge of his nose as he usually did when the headaches began, Kaidan absently pressed his fingers to the pulse point on his neck. He could still feel his heart racing. It felt like Shepard's lips were still lingering on his skin. God, he thought, his eyes drifting shut, this was so...

Erotic? Maddening? Hell, _embarrassing_? Kaidan scowled and dropped his hand. He couldn't believe this: one meeting, one slight touch and it was like his body had completely returned to two years ago when all he wanted to do was to be close to Shepard, no matter the consequences, no matter what trouble his impulses landed him in. Kaidan ran a hand through his hair. Unfortunately, it wasn't just his body that was filled with longing and regret. It would be easier if it really was lust, pure and simple, but he knew it wasn't.

Kaidan had thought his heart had died the day that the Normandy went down, but now he realized he had been wrong. His heart had lived on in secret, just like Shepard had. It was fitting, he thought bitterly as he unstrapped his harness. His heart had been Shepard's since he gave it away to her that night before Ilos, so of course, it would have been with _her _all this while. It seemed he was never going to get it back, either. Instead, Shepard was ripping his heart to shreds from afar – and using faint kisses to do so.

Kaidan frowned and rubbed his eyes. His reaction to her was insane and he knew it. What Shepard did to him, what her touch reduced him to, what his heart was hoping just now: it just didn't make any sense. Here he was, dreaming about her, hell, _aroused_ over some nothing kiss, when everything else about their meeting had gone completely wrong. And yet, he thought, looking out of the window at the dingy station before him, that one kiss had been so right. Nothing else about Horizon made any sense – nothing before Shepard's arrival, nothing after, but that one kiss had been just like old times.

Like old times, Kaidan thought, his eyes closing. And old times had been so...complicated. He remembered that now. It seemed that every day back then brought up a new question, a new figuing of what he and Shepard were to each other, how they ought to be together, how they ought to treat each other. And yet, when they _were_ together, when they truly just came together and focused on each other, then everything had seemed to fit. The biotics, their friendship, their...bodies. Kaidan sucked in a breath. Even the awkward moments had felt – right. He saw that now, looking back. That kiss on Horizon had felt right, too.

Kaidan scowled, rising from his chair. Why _had_ she kissed him anyway? He still couldn't figure that out. He hadn't even thought of it before she left, but why would she kiss him at all unless she was trying to tell him something? He supposed it might have been impulse, but wouldn't any such impulse have died if she had left him for Cerberus? He just couldn't think of any reason why she would do that. It was enough to make him wonder if he shouldn't have...

No, Kaidan thought, pushing the thought aside. He _wouldn't_ wonder if he ought to have joined her. He was an Alliance soldier. He would never leave his loyalties behind. Shepard may have...changed. Hell, he had changed, too, but no so much as to turn to Cerberus.

It was Shepard who had changed him, too, Kaidan thought sadly. She had drawn him out of himself, given him hope for a future and for love, made him believe he had a a friend who understood him and would stand by him. With her around, he became the kind of person who gave up on duty and rules to...follow her into whatever mad scheme she hatched. Alright, he admitted grudgingly, so she'd been right at the time, but he wasn't about to break the rules now – not if Shepard was with Cerberus.

Well, Kaidan thought as he hitched his duffel onto his shoulder, he'd be damned if he let this encounter change him. His body might still be reacting to her touch, tormenting him for walking away, but thankfully, he knew what he was about.

He wouldn't let Shepard – or her memory – change him any more.

* * *

Shepard's eyes flew open and she gasped for breath. The room was dark around her, all except for the window above her bed, which framed for her the stars in the sky above.

For a moment, Shepard panicked, thinking she had not woken at all, that the horrible nightmare was true and she was still drifting, still falling...

Shepard lay there, pulling herself back from the haze of sleep, convincing herself that she was not going to fly off of this bed, out into that black sky. She remembered this sensation from years ago, from her childhood, actually. She and some friends had been out late on a summer night, talking long after the Foundation Day fireworks had dimmed. They watched a meteor shower over Mindoir's sky from the back lawn. Her friends had laughed, pointed at the stars, flirted with each other, and she even saw one sneak a kiss from another. But Shepard had an odd moment of disorientation that night: for the briefest moment as she had laid on her back against the dry grass, she felt as though she was going to fall up – out into the void, endlessly floating forever and ever.

Hell of a thing, she thought, when your childhood fears turn prophetic like that. That was so very close to the way she'd actually died.

Shepard felt solid and grounded enough to risk movement now. She rolled over, turned on the light beside her bed, then gathered herself against the headboard, knees up, elbows on her knees. Her hands were still shaking and the bed felt far too big. She desperately wished someone – a very specific someone – was here to hold her right now.

Shepard shivered, then focused her eyes on the room beyond the bed. The sheets were torn; one pillow lay at the far end of the room against the door. A chair was overturned and her wardrobe appeared to have exploded over the floor. Her biotics had apparently torn the place apart. Shepard let out a breath. In the past, the action would have blown her hair from her eyes. But now...

With a sigh, Shepard rubbed a hand over her hair was finally feeling like hair again, and not stubble. It almost - almost - bent forward slightly against her scalp. Shepard got out of bed and began to pick up the room. She put away the clothes and threaded the drawers back into their proper places. The door of the wardrobe hung askew from where it had been pulled off of its hinges and the mirror over the dresser had been shattered. Shepard pulled off the broken door and set it aside. She'd apologize to Gardiner about it in the morning.

Without meaning to, her gaze drifted up to the window over the bed. With the lights on, the view didn't seem quite so frightening. It looked peaceful – like when she'd gone camping as a kid, she told herself. Only the stars were different out here. The stars...

Shepard shuddered as she remembered the dream. She had been in the Normandy, in this bed, even, as they were approaching Haestrom. When they reached the system, the glowing, red sun had appeared over the window above her. The Normandy suddenly stopped, but she did not. She flew up into that window, slid right through it like a ghost. She continued to slide, flailing wildly, as she skidded out past the dying star, past the planets, past all light. She continued on across the star system to its edge. Instead of blacking out, instead of dying, she was very much alive and concious. She kept on going: through a pink-tinged gas cloud, past debris, ice shards, and then, after a horrible moment of tetering on the edge of space, she slipped right out past the termination shock and out of the galaxy entirely.

The line that was the disk of the Milky Way had receded behind her. Before her, she could see the faintest pin pricks of light: many other galaxies beyond reckoning, beyond reach. She continued to slide away into the true nothing of dark space.

Then, she had seen _them_.

They filled her sight, their sleek outlines lit by the now-faint glow of the Milky Way. They were massive. They were endless.

And they were coming.

Shepard froze, looking at her own reflection in the cracked mirror.

The Reapers were still coming, and she was the only one who believed in it.

Shepard counted her breaths, reminding herself that she still had time, that she was still alive, but the fear of that dream had wound its way into her mind. She was just one person, she thought wildly, just one person against...what, really? An army? A harvest? She hardly knew what was coming for them. Hell, she hardly knew where her own worries ended and the visions from the beacons began.

Shepard clutched at her skull. It was hellish, really, to carry another person's thoughts inside one's brain. It was difficult enough dealing with her own thoughts and emotions. It was even wilder to carry around all these borrowed lives. She supposed she was lucky that her exhaustion each day had kept the nightmares at bay until now. But the thought of approaching the Far Rim had somehow triggered the nagging sensation that she was missing something – that dark energy or stars or...something was tied to the Reapers. She felt like there were clues hidden all over the galaxy, but she had no time to look for them. She did know one thing, however: she feared the galaxy's edge, though she couldn't say if it was something inside of her fearing it or if she feared it for herself.

So the Reapers were coming, Shepard reminded herself, shaking her head. All the rest of the galaxy thought she was mad for believing in them, and some days – like right about now – she was inclined to think so too.

But no, she reminded herself. There were others who believed in the Reapers as well. Saren had seen the visions, though they had driven him mad. The Illusive Man believed her, though that was cold comfort. Her crew believed in the Collectors at least, though she wondered they believed her about the Reapers, too. Tali maybe, Garrus certainly. Joker, she wasn't sure. Anderson had believed her, too, she thought, even if he was doing very little to help. Liara had believed her, had even seen the beacon's message. And as for Kaidan...

Shepard let her eyes close. Kaidan had believed her once. He had seen the proof as clearly as she, every step of the way. He didn't have the beacon's visions, but he had seen every other piece of the puzzle. But then, on Horizon, he said he _wanted_ to believe her, not that he did. He questioned if Cerberus wasn't using the threat of the Reapers to manipulate her, implying that...

Implying what? She wondered. That he didn't believe her anymore? That he just couldn't see how stopping the Reapers went beyond factions or loyalties? She didn't trust Cerberus any more than a brood of vipers, but if they were going to help her fight the Reapers...

_Then what? _She wondered, blinking at her broken reflection. Y_ou're going to allow them to guide you? To change you?_

What else could she do? she thought, carefully picking up the shards of the mirror and laying them in a line on the dresser. Cerberus was using her, clearly they were. But that didn't change the fact that the Reapers were coming and that she was the only one alive who had touched the beacon and Cerberus was the only group that had given her resources to move forward. She felt like she was taking gifts from demons, but how else was she to go on? She couldn't blame Kaidan for not trusting Cerberus – she certainly didn't. But she _would_ blame herself if she failed to stop the Reaper threat when she had any chance of doing so.

_That's a pretty shitty justification, Shepard_, she thought to herself.

It was, she realized ruefully. It was like holding the hand of the devil, she thought, warm against her own cold skin. Allowing the devil to lead her into hell was not the best way to get out of the pit on her own and she knew that. But she had tried to reach out to old allies and they had turned her down, every one.

Shepard set down the last piece of glass and placed the last drawer back in its place. Making up her mind at once, she crossed to her computer and opened it. Anderson needed to know. She had to remind him – had to tell him...

_No extranet connection. Please contact your systems administrator._

Shepard frowned at the screen, ready to call on EDI, but then she remembered what she had read about Haestrom. The planet had some kind of force field around it that blocked all communications off-world. If the extranet connection was down, then that must mean...

"Bridge to commander Shepard," she heard Joker's voice crackle over the comm. "Hate to wake you, but..."

"I'm up," she said at once. "How close are we, Joker?"

"Twenty minutes," he said. "EDI's got a lock on a quarian ship emission trail and we've used it to track down where they dropped in their team. Looks like they got here only a few days before we did."

"Good work, Joker," Shepard told him, "I'll be down in a minute."

As she turned to gather her armor, Shepard saw the light in the cabin change. Curious, she looked up at the window over her bed, then froze.

Her blood seemed to turn to ice as she saw it: a great, red star, flickering with patches of deep crimson, roiling as if with a storm of dark energy. It was exactly like her dream. She could feel herself falling up, sliding out into the void...

Shepard shook herself, forcing the nightmare back into her head. She didn't have time for this right now. She had to rescue Tali.

But as she slipped on her armor for the mission, Shepard still felt that sun on her back, watching her like a devil's eye.

* * *

Kaidan looked out of the grimy picture window at the smudgy, brown cloud that was the Hawking Eta nebula. Some parts of the nebula were beautiful, he knew, having passed through this area once before. There were clouds tinged by gold and pink, some even glowing a brilliant aquamarine. But the fuel depot had not been built in a senic spot. The view from here looked out on a sea of smog. Inside the station, a layer of film crusted over everything.

He really ought to sleep, Kaidan thought to himself, maybe on that bench over there, or at least find a restroom and wash his face. You'd think when the human councilor of the galactic government sent a frigate to pick you up, the flight would be non-stop, but you'd be wrong. He had been told to wait for about an hour before the next Alliance ship came to claim him. He was hungry, but the mere smell of the taco stand nearby made him feel queasy. He seriously doubted the meat inside was vat-grown cow as advertised. The cigar-smoking elcor behind the counter didn't do much to recommend the cuisine either.

Kaidan walked around to stretch his cramped legs. He fell asleep in a chair for all of five minutes before a clutch of screaming salarian toddlers woke him. He left the children and their beleagured father as quickly as possible, then rounded a corner to see a volus get up from an extranet station. The suited alien muttered something about lost stocks and idiotic assistant who couldn't keep their fingers out of tainted red sand as he waddled away.

Kaidan glanced at the extranet terminal, then checked his omnitool for the time. He still had about forty-five minutes before his flight arrived, and that would be more than enough time to send Anderson a message about the fact that everything about Horizon had been complete bullshit. He wouldn't put it in quite _those_ words, of course, but he would be clear: Horizon had been a mess – and he wanted answers.

As Kaidan plunked himself down into the rickety plastic chair, the thought went through his head that he might send Shepard an email, too. He remembered watching that hysterical woman, Robyn, sending a message to Shepard, using the address he had given to her. It had been painful to watch the colonist hunt and peck the keys on the holographic interface, then yell at the computer when her fingers went right through the display because she didn't know how to touch the screen with the right pressure.

It had been painful to watch in other ways, too. On the one hand, Kaidan had felt a little...wistful watching the woman ask Shepard for help. He realized that Shepard was the one person in the galaxy who probably _could_ stop these attacks. On the other hand, however, he still felt bitter about...well, everything. He supposed he could send Shepard an email, just to ask about her plans for stopping the attacks, of course, but he squelched that thought at once. Whatever Shepard _claimed_ she was trying to do, she worked with terrorists now. He couldn't write to her. After all, what did you say to a woman you once loved but now didn't trust? What did you say to a woman you had once loved but now didn't _know_?

Kaidan tapped on the holographic keyboard, bringing up his account. The secure files from the Alliance did not appear – it was, after all, a very unsecure terminal – but the rest of his email was visible. He noticed he'd gotten a few short messages from Lisa, something from Dean, a handful of notices from Alliance command regarding non-classified events and a few reminders about changes in protocol...

Kaidan stopped, staring at his account.

_Present from Shepard: Classified Cerberus-is-Bat-Shit-Crazy Files. Some assembly and/or decryption required._

Kaidan blinked, closed his eyes, then blinked again.

That couldn't possibly be from _her_, could it?

The unread message was wedged between an invitation to the annual regional Alliance officer's ball in Vancouver and a reminder about not wearing class A uniforms for personal dates.

Kaidan ignored all that and stared at the message with Shepard's name on it. She had sent it through her old email address with the Alliance. Well, he thought in a daze, that answered the question of whether or not she was checking her account. She could have written him earlier, he realized – she just hadn't bother to.

Anger began to fill his gut, but it couldn't quite get as firm a foothold as before. Regret and longing had taken up residence within him on the ship ride here, and curiousity was now crowding in as well, demanding to know what she had written.

Kaidan opened the message at once. A large file was attached to it, and it was addressed to:

_To: Captain Anderson, Admiral Hackett_

_[Bcc: Staff Commander Alenko]_

Kaidan couldn't help it: he laughed aloud. She'd sent a message titled "bat shit crazy" to a councilor and an admiral? Either she hadn't been thinking very clearly or she'd done that on purpose for maximum shock value. He wasn't quite sure. After all, even when he'd worked with her, Shepard would sometimes step out of her cold, aloof persona to say and do things that completely confused him. He wondered what Anderson and Hackett had thought of that when they'd seen it. He would have to asked them...

No, he realized suddenly, he wouldn't ask them. Because Shepard had sent this message to him as blind carbon copy, and so clearly she hadn't meant for Hackett or Anderson to know she'd sent it to him as well. Even more curious now, Kaidan read the email:

_Dear Sirs,_

_Yours are the addresses I remember off the top of my head. It's a long story, so I'll keep it short. I found this evidence regarding the research Cerberus was doing on the rachni specimins they took from Saren's labs on Noveria. This information may be able to link Cerberus to the murder of Admiral Kahoku and possibly other crimes as well. My former crew know the details of what we found two years ago and can fill in any questions._

_Cerberus may try to recover this data. My accounts are being monitored. I have had difficultly contacting you over secure channels and may not be able to contact you again._

_Keep yourselves safe._

_- Shepard_

_P.S., I want you to know that your faith in me was not misplaced._

Kaidan stared at the keyboard, feeling as though he had been punched in the gut.

"Oh my God," he whispered to no one in particular. "Shepard..."

He swallowed, then just stared.

"Shepard," he whispered again.

* * *

_Muahahaha! I've been waiting to drop that bomb for ages now. *rubs hands in maniacal glee* And did anyone get the U2 reference? If so, you get an e-cookie._


	39. Bcc

_Chapter 39_

_(Bcc)_

_

* * *

_

Kaidan felt his mouth hanging open. He snapped his jaw shut so hard that his teeth hurt.

_I want you to know that your faith in me was not misplaced._

He pressed his fingers to his eyes.

Just like that, everything he'd assumed about Shepard for the past two days suddenly collapsed like a house of cards. And what he'd assumed for the past two days had been reconstructed out of the mess of his shattered beliefs about her for the past two years. He hardly knew what to think anymore, except to think that he had no idea how to form a clear picture of Shepard in his mind. The pieces just kept breaking as soon as he picked them up.

Shepard had written to him.

Alright, not _to _him precisely, but she'd sent him a message – almost two weeks ago, from the look of things. He had probably missed the message on Horizon because he never checked his email account when on assignment in the colonies. He frowned. It looked like that bad habit had come to bite him in the ass at last.

_I want you to know that your faith in me was not misplaced._

Hell of a way to twist the knife, Kaidan thought. Here he'd been thinking how right he was in walking away from her, in calling her on her traitorous defection to Cerberus, and all the while she'd been undercover...

No, he thought, looking at the message again. She wasn't undercover for the Alliance – or the Council either. She wouldn't have blown her cover to send such an email, even over something like this. And an email with her name on it, labeled "bat-shit-crazy" would certainly have blown her cover.

Kaidan shook his head, torn between irritation and a feeling of...fond nostalgia? Shepard had a working knowledge of technology, but she'd never been much of a hacker. She hadn't even bothered to try and encrypt the email. Maybe she hadn't bothered because the data was so encrypted itself. Or maybe she still didn't know how to do so. Either way, she had to know that Cerberus would find out about this. And yet, she had sent the message anyway.

But _why_?

With a few taps to the keyboard, Kaidan traced the path by which the message had been sent: it was from an Eclipse merc account of all things, the signal originating on a planet called Lorek. That was one of the more remote systems of the Omega Nebula and Kaidan couldn't imagine what had drawn Shepard out _there_ of all places, nor why she would be using some merc's account to send email. From the looks of things, Shepard really _was_ working for Cerberus – though she was ready to stab them in the back – or rather, the front – to help the Alliance. It was like...like she was with Cerberus but deliberately rubbing her defection in their faces – all three faces of that three-headed dog, as it were.

So what the hell did that mean? Kaidan wondered. Aside from not working for the Alliance, he supposed that it meant her dealings with Cerberus were uneasy at best. But...clearly she wasn't their prisoner or anything, not given the way she'd acted on Horizon. Cerberus must have known about this - after all, this had happened weeks ago, and yet Shepard had still been running the show during the rescue from the Collector attack. It was possible that Shepard had been brainwashed to join Cerberus, but that made no sense either, not given the way she had behaved then. She had seemed as much the leader as ever, and she didn't seem worried that Cerberus was after her. Whatever her relationship with Cerberus, one thing was clear: there was more going on here than he had thought.

Kaidan frowned. So what the hell _was _going on between Shepard and Cerberus? It seemed that Shepard had joined them willingly, but he still didn't know why. She said something about stopping the Collectors, but it didn't make sense. Why would she have gone to _them _for help? Even if the Alliance had been dragging their heels regarding the colony attacks, why join Cerberus? She was a Spectre still. All she had to do was come back and ask the Council for resources, right? Then she could go do whatever was necessary to maintain galactic stability - in other words, do whatever the hell she wanted.

Maybe Anderson would know more, Kaidan thought. He would have to ask the man as soon as he was able. Not – he told himself – that he would reveal the nature of his relationship with Shepard – or the fact that she had sent him this email. For Shepard to send such a highly classified message to her old lieutenant might raise questions. Perhaps, Kaidan thought, glancing at the "Bcc" again, Shepard had been thinking the same thing, and even now she was trying to keep their relationship a secret.

_Had she kept their relationship secret from Cerberus?_

Kaidan's eyes widened. Suddenly, Shepard's reasons for not contacting him took on another possibility entirely. If Shepard hadn't wanted Cerberus to know about the two of them, then maybe that was why she'd seemed so cold on Horizon. That Cerberus agent at her back might have been Shepard's handler, as it were. And Kaidan had just blurted out that he loved Shepard right in front of that woman and whoever else might have been listening via a comm link.

That had been stupid, he thought, wincing at the memory. No wonder Shepard had looked like he'd slapped her when he said that. Even now, he cringed at the thought that he'd said such a private thing in front of an audience. He hadn't meant to say it at all. Hell, he had been trying to come up with the right opportunity to tell Shepard that he loved her when...when she'd died. Back then, the setting had never seemed quite right. First the hotel room, then the ship... It seemed like the stronger his feelings grew, the worse the circumstances became. So Kaidan had kept that "I love you" to himself, like this gift he intended to give to Shepard, someday. Only he never had the chance to.

Instead, he thought ruefully, he'd blurted out those feelings in a moment of anger, when he wasn't even sure of them anymore. In doing so, he revealed his very inappropriate relationship with his commanding officer to a group of terrorists.

And Shepard had probably wanted to keep all that secret. The question remained, of course, if had Shepard tried to keep their relationship secret because it didn't matter to her anymore, or if she had she said nothing because it still mattered to her and she was trying to protect him, even now.

God, Kaidan thought, scowling at the screen. Why hadn't Shepard just _told_ him what was really going on? And why use this merc's account and send a Bcc? Why hadn't she sent him a real message intended for him alone? But then, he thought, maybe she had been trying to tell him something on Horizon and he just hadn't heard. Maybe this email really had been the first time she had been able to contact anyone. Maybe she was being spied on by Cerberus and that was why she hadn't sent a message from her own account. Or maybe he'd been right in first his assessment of her and Shepard had left him for a group of terrorists and there was nothing more to say. Or maybe she had joined them for reasons that really weren't all that bad – though, how that could be the case with a group like Cerberus, he could hardly imagine.

Still, whatever the terms of her arrangement with Cerberus, she had sent this information, and this information would hurt Cerberus and help the Alliance. She clearly had intended to bring her new allies to justice. And that showed that she still thought of herself as Alliance, whatever organization was funding her latest mission.

Kaidan squeezed his eyes shut as if in pain.

Shepard still thought of herself as Alliance.

He suddenly felt his stomach plummet as he remembered all the things he had said on Horizon. He had told her that she had betrayed the Alliance by joining Cerberus; he told her that she had betrayed _him_. And then he'd yelled at her when she tried to explain herself.

_Kaidan, you know me..._

_Damn it,_ Kaidan thought, wincing, no wonder she'd looked so shocked and then so angry. All the while, an email proving her loyalty had been sitting in his inbox. It was clear, reading this message, that Shepard had remained true to the Alliance all along. And then he had gone and said...

Kaidan could scarcely stomach to think about what he had said. He had been so angry. And foolish. And just plain...mean. He frowned. He was never mean. In the past, he'd been raw around Shepard, unable to keep his lust and his frustration about the damn regs to himself. He knew some of that was because he had been closer to Shepard than he had ever been to anyone. She got to see both the best and the worst of him because of that.

But he'd never been mean to Shepard before, never cruel. At least...he didn't think he had been. He liked to think that he was a gentlemanly kind of guy, but then, around Shepard, he stopped checking himself, stopped watching everything he said and did. There was something about her that made him both cautious and yet certain all at once – like he could say anything and she would always be there, but he had never quite figured out where they stood together, given the strange circumstances of being CO and subordinate.

Hell, Kaidan thought, that was part of the problem right there. On Horizon, he had been angrier than he'd ever been before, and once he got going, he stopped thinking of Shepard as his...lover. He swallowed to even admit the word to himself. No, he had treated her like an officer who needed a reality check. And since she was no longer his superior, not really, he hadn't tempered it with his usual deference. He had told her exactly what he had thought about her and Cerberus, because he assumed that she could take it. Commander Shepard had faced down a Reaper; Commander Shepard had back-talked the Citadel Council. Surely Commander Shepard wouldn't fold under criticism from her former lieutenant. He could tell her exactly what he thought and she would listen - then perhaps yell right back at him - but she would listen.

And she did listen, or so he thought. But, she hadn't yelled - not really. She had been angry for a moment, but then she just...let him walk away, like she didn't have any reason to stop him. At the time, Kaidan thought it was because she was with Cerberus and didn't care. But now, he realized that maybe she hadn't stopped him because she thought _he_ didn't care.

Kaidan began to feel sick. He may have just killed whatever lingering..._anything_ had been between him and Shepard with his careless words on Horizon. He wanted to tell himself that Shepard had begun it all by disappearing on him for two years, but he wasn't sure of that anymore, either. He wasn't sure about anything. He had been so angry that he hadn't stopped to find out what was really going on. And now, he realized, he might never know.

Kaidan opened his eyes.

He had to know. He simply had to know where he stood. Even if it was like handing Shepard his heart again - or rather, like inviting Shepard to see that she still held his heart and could do whatever she liked with it - he simply had to contact her.

He had about a half an hour before his ship arrived, he saw, glancing at the time. He was tired, shell-shocked and only somewhat lucid; he'd have to use some pretty fancy tech to encrypt a message from his Alliance account to hers, but he knew he had to try and reach her. He figured that a short message, from one officer to another would not raise too many eyebrows, and at least the Alliance servers would be secure from Cerberus.

At the very least, he owned her an apology.

He just hoped it wasn't already too late.

* * *

"Get down!" Shepard cried, dropping down behind cover. The explosion rocked the entire complex, causing cement to crumble from the high walls to her right. Shepard checked her radar as her shields recovered, then sighed in relief to see the field was clear.

"Nice work, Shepard," came the voice of Kal'Reegar over the comm. The quarian had only recently made Shepard's acquaintance, and already the respect was mutual between the two soldiers. "You go get Tali. I'll be right behind you."

"Right" Shepard said, holstering her heavy weapon and dropping the heat sink from her pistol. "Now _that_ was impressive," she said, grinning at Mordin, who was crouched beside her. "I've only taken out a Colossus on foot once before, and it was an ugly business. Well done."

"Yes," Mordin said approvingly. He brushed off his lab coat with a nod. "Well-timed use of heavy weapons for damage and singularity skill to pin geth in place. Prevented repair protocol. Glad you are growing accustomed to upgraded biotic skills."

"Me too," Shepard agreed. "And you, Mordin, good work. I didn't know salarians could be that deadly." She smiled and held up her hand for a high five.

The salarian looked at her quizzically, then held up his three-fingered hand as well, mirroring Shepard in some sort of bizarre salute.

"It's a high five, Mordin," Shepard said, almost laughing as she looked from her hand to his. "You're supposed to hit my hand."

"Oh." The alien blinked, then punched Shepard's open hand with his fist.

"No," Shepard frowned. "Okay, first, you punch like a girl, Mordin. We're going to need to work on that wrist action. Secondly, you're supposed to hit with an open hand."

"Open hand?"

"Kaidan and I had to teach Garrus this at first, too. He can demonstrate. Garrus?" Shepard looked over her shoulder to where Garrus had been at her back. "Can you...? Oh shit!" Shepard felt her heart drop into her toes as she saw the turian's limp body, crumpled against the crates behind her.

"Garrus!" she shouted, readying a dose of medigel, but Mordin beat her to it.

"No lasting trauma," the salarian informed her as he ran his omnitool over Garrus' body. "Concussed, dehydrated, fracture to left front plate, crack will heal by the end of the week."

"Garrus..." Shepard frowned as she waited for his eyes to open. A moment later, Garrus looked up at her with a dazed expression. He blinked, his small blue eyes unfocused for a moment before they settled on her face. Shepard's initial panic turned to fury.

"The _hell_?" she snapped. "You were supposed to stay down. How'd you get hit?"

Garrus groaned, sitting up and leaning against the crate beside him. "Nice to see you, too, Shepard," he said.

"I..." Shepard frowned. _I'm sorry, I've been on edge, lately_, she wanted to say, but she decided against it. Everyone knew she'd been on edge, so there really was no point in bringing it up.

"You scared me there, Garrus," she told him. "You were supposed to keep that thick head of yours behind cover, not use it as a target for the geth."

"I'm not going to sit still while you finish the fight for me," he grumbled.

"I barely got that Destroyer off of your ass in time," she glared at him. "You were supposed to rest and let Mordin and me handle the big one while you kept an eye out for reinforcements."

"Well, I _was_ keeping an eye out," he said, flexing his arms gingerly. "I just decided you needed some help and I got knocked out for my efforts."

Shepard shook her head at him. "You need to play it safe, Garrus. You can't pull stunts like that and expect to live."

"Says the woman who ran across a battlefield while being shot at by geth to dive behind a crate," Garrus snorted. "I thought that Colossus had your digit on it."

Shepard blinked at the strange phrase, her anger shot down by confusion. "My...digit?"

"Did I get the phrase wrong?" Garrus asked. "Wasn't that what you said when you got knocked out that one time? 'That one had my digit'?"

"No," Shepard said, now laughing. "No, it's 'number' – 'That one almost had my _number_ on it.' And I didn't say that – that was what Kaidan..."

She broke off. She and Garrus exchanged an awkward glance before both looked away.

"Let's find Tali," Shepard said quickly.

"Right," Garrus said, trying to stand. His legs buckled under him and he fell heavily to the ground.

"Rest for now," Shepard said, holding a hand out. "I've got Tali."

"She might..."

"What, Garrus?" Shepard asked him, sparing him a pained look. "She knows I'm alive and with Cerberus. I doubt she's going to chew me out in front of my team. And if she did, I don't want an audience for it."

"An audience..." Garrus broke off, his mandibles flaring. "You mean me?"

"I don't..." She took a breath, then said, "Horizon was embarrassing, Garrus." Garrus just stared at her and she had to look away. She was sick of thinking about Horizon. They were on another mission now. She couldn't spend the rest of her days dwelling on that moment when Kaidan walked away, just wishing she could do it all over again, wishing she could find something to say. She just had to...move on – even if she didn't want to.

"Let Mordin patch you up and let me go find Tali," she told Garrus, her eyes averted from his searching gaze.

"Alright, Shepard," Garrus said at last. "Your call."

"Thanks." She gave him a weak smile before she turned away. The turian watched her go, then winced as the salarian poked him in the ribs.

"Ow!" Garrus scowled at Mordin. "Watch it."

"Must stabilize fracture," the salarian told him. "Likelihood of geth reinforcements slim, but..."

"Right," Garrus grumbled. "Hurry up, then."

"Yes," Mordin nodded. "Also, between you and me, concerned about Shepard. Commander growing more aggressive under stress."

"Well," Garrus chuckled, "That's Shepard for you..."

"Stress levels extremely high," Mordin continued. "Yet not as a symptom of monthly cycles."

"Monthly what?" Mordin clarified and Garrus stared.

"Oh," the turian said, his eyes widening. "That...explains a lot."

"Read mission reports about Horizon," Mordin continued. "Perhaps..."

"Don't talk about Horizon," Garrus said warningly, looking over her shoulder. "She's..."

"Concerned about Shepard," Mordin repeated, frowning.

"Yeah," Garrus agreed, mirroring that frown. "Me too."

* * *

"Keelah," Tali said, looking up at the large sphere above her. The drive core emanated a kind of blue, rippling energy all throughout the room. To Shepard, it was soothing, but no doubt the quarian wasn't seeing anything but a dying star in her mind.

"I still can't believe this," Tali murmured. "I mean...my team..."

Shepard nodded, thinking back to their exit from the quarian ruin. As they walked back to the landing zone, Garrus had been thoughtful and silent, Tali equally so. Mordin, however, made up for the others. He would not shut up. He talked endlessly, recording as much data as he could into his omnitool, giving a running dictation on all his observations. More than once, Shepard had to drag the distracted professor out of the sunlight before his shields overheated. While the salarian had surprised her with his skill in combat, his ability to get side-tracked by his intellectual curiosity was a serious liability.

"Are you gonna be okay?" Shepard asked Tali, trying to see her expression behind her mask. "Today was...rough."

"Yes," Tali said, her accent stronger as her voice grew low. "I...those people... They died for me."

"Yeah..." Shepard said frowning. While she was usually in the thick of the action, she knew it was never easy to feel someone else had taken a bullet so you didn't have to. For a moment, her mind wandered to Kaidan. He certainly knew that feeling. Had he felt that way about Virmire, she wondered? Had he resented her interference, even now? She thought he'd gotten past it, but maybe...

"It helped to say the rites for them, though," Tali said. "I'm sorry Kal and I took so long..."

Shepard remembered back to the strange sound of the two quarians chanting words that were foreign, untranslatable, and unmistakably holy. She hadn't understood a word of it, but as soon as the quarians finished, she couldn't help but mutter, "Amen." Apparently, that word hadn't translated either because Tali asked her about it afterward. Shepard had to explain it's meaning. Then she confessed that she didn't speak that word very often. The last time she had ended a prayer that way was at Ashley's funeral.

"Not at all," Shepard told her. "I'm sorry we couldn't...do more." She felt wrong leaving the bodies of Kal's team, but there was no way to carry the corpses out when they had to move quickly to stay out of the sun and to avoid being seen by more geth. Besides, blasted and infected as the bodies had been, it wasn't worth the risk.

Tali turned her head away, her mask now concealed by her head covering. "It was hard not to see them attended to," she admitted, "but..." She shrugged. "They died on a world we once inhabited as a free people – free of these suits. Perhaps that is better than any other death."

"It always sucks though," Shepard said with a frown. "Loosing anyone."

"Sucks?" Tali looked at her quizzically. "What is...sucks?"

"Ah...never mind," Shepard said quickly.

"Sucks..." Tali repeated. "To...pull...with the mouth?" Shepard belatedly realized the quarian was looking the word up in her omnitool data banks.

"Really, never mind," Shepard said. It was too late. Behind her mask, Tali's pale eyes widened.

"Keelah!" she exclaimed, looking up at Shepard.

"I...use bad language," Shepard said, feeling sheepish. "And that's not the worst of it. Best not to look up anything I..."

To Shepard's surprise, Tali laughed. "I know. I think I learned more vulgar human sayings from you and Joker than all the Migrant Fleet ever knew in centuries before."

"Gee, thanks," Shepard said, blushing a little. She smiled to see Tali recovering though. On the one hand, it felt wrong to be laughing after a day like this one. But on the other hand, Shepard honestly didn't know how else to deal with death and loss but to find the first opportunity to laugh.

"You gonna be okay with leaving Kal'Reegar behind?" she asked, trying to look beyond the mask to read Tali's glowing gaze. "I mean, we could try and recruit him now that he's delivered..."

"No," Tali shook her head. "Kal is...a marine. His first duty is to the fleet."

"I understand," Shepard said quietly. Involuntarily, her mind went back to the last marine she'd spoken to, who had also returned to his fleet.

"Having any trouble settling back in on the Normandy?" she asked, pushing that thought aside. "It's not unlike the last ship – except that this is the only place you can be sure you're not being monitored," she added, waving a hand at the drive core that loomed over them.

"I like the quiet," Tali said, "I miss the old faces though." Even behind the mask, Shepard could hear a wistful smile in her voice. "Presley, Engineer Adams – all of them. It doesn't seem right having Cerberus in charge of this ship."

"I fully expect them to betray us at some point," Shepard said, making a face. "I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop."

"Shoe?" Tali asked, cocking her head.

"It's...another human expression," Shepard said, shaking her head. "Look, just... If I've got you and Joker with me, Garrus and Chakwas – we'll see about the others, but, well, I want to be ready when that happens."

"I'm glad to hear that, Shepard," Tali said grimly. "I had wondered... Just let me know how I can help. For now," she said, her voice sounding tired. "I should get back to work."

"Sure," Shepard nodded, walking with Tali back out of the engine room. "And Tali," she said before she turned to go, "It's good to have you back." The quarian nodded to her and Shepard smiled.

* * *

As she walked away, Shepard reflected on how much more pleasant a day it had turned out to be than it had begun. Her old friend had survived the rescue mission, joined her in spite of her being with Cerberus, and had allowed her to explain the situation instead of yelling at her. Tali had even agreed to join her when the proverbial other shoe did, in fact, drop. Such a nice change from what had happened with Kaidan, Shepard thought, wryly.

And regarding Kaidan, Shepard didn't doubt for a second that someone – probably Garrus – had filled Tali in on the situation with the former lieutenant. On the shuttle ride back, Kaidan's name came up and no one said anything. Garrus looked to Shepard; Shepard looked away. Mordin started to say something about "cycles" - whatever that was - and Garrus had elbowed him in the ribs so hard that the salarian started gagging and had to apply some medigel to himself. Tali had looked curious, but didn't press for clarification. And then, just now, she hadn't asked at all. Tali had always been a curious one, so clearly, someone had warned her not to piss the commander off.

Shepard wandered back to the elevator, leaning heavily against the door until it reached the command deck. Then she straightened, forcing herself to look as leader-like as possible when she stepped out to face the crew.

"You have unread messages, commander," Kelly informed Shepard as she approached the CIC.

"Thank you, Kelly," Shepard said. In her head, she added, _Frankly, I don't give a shit._

But she didn't say that. She had wasted enough time moping and being riddled by nightmares. For now, at least, she would act like everything was normal and get some chores done. Her team needed to get properly outfitted for this mission, and that meant she needed money and resources. She knew she had a whole backlog of assignments that ought to keep her busy for a while. So as long as they were this far out, near the rim, they might as well work their way back to the Citadel – and Anderson – slowly.

Shepard was of two minds about that eventual confrontation. On the one hand, she had half a mind to demand answers from Anderson immediately. On the other hand, she had little inclination to even talk to him. If he didn't help her now – and she suspected he wouldn't – then she really was on her own.

"Miranda would like to speak with you," Kelly added helpfully.

"And yet, Miranda can still go screw herself," Shepard muttered under her breath.

She opened her computer to check her messages, to remind herself of the assignments that Cerberus had for her. There was a new message from the migrant fleet, a veiled threat telling Shepard to treat Tali well. _As if I wouldn't,_ Shepard thought, frowning, but she couldn't fault the quarians for being leery of Cerberus. The other message was more curious, the sender unknown. The heading just said...

Shepard felt a blush creep up her face and her heart suddenly skipped a beat.

_About Horizon..._


	40. Flashback: Unprofessional

_Chapter 40_

_(unprofessional)_

_(Flashback: (What? A flashback? Yes... Because I must.) One month after the battle of the Citadel, groundside mission to Casbin, 0100 hours.)_

_

* * *

_

"Is...he going to be okay?" Tali asked, her voice a little breathless behind the mask.

"I think so," Shepard said, dropping to her knees at once. "He's..." She breathed a sigh of relief as Kaidan lifted his head and shook it. "Conscious."

"Ugh," Kaidan grunted, grimacing. "I thought that one...had my number on it. But it just...punctured my suit is all." He breathed heavily, grimacing as he rolled himself to a seated position. Shepard leaned over him, checking him for injuries. Tali said nothing, but from her silence, Shepard guessed that the quarian was sizing Kaidan up, thinking about the difference between a suit puncture for a human and for one of a member of her species.

"Oh," was all Tali said.

"I'm okay, Shepard – commander," Kaidan said, waving her off. "Really, I am."

"That was a stupid move, Alenko," Shepard snapped at him, not backing away. "You're lucky the suit was all that got punctured."

"I'm fine, commander," he repeated. "You don't need..."

"Kaidan," she said, her breath catching in her throat. "You're _not_ okay – you're burned." She looked at his armor in horror, noting how the synthetic fabric had melted, fusing to his red, raw skin.

"I've got it," he said, "Just...hand me some medigel and..."

"I know first aid, too, Kaidan," Shepard told him. "Now stay still and let me help you for once."

Kaidan looked like he was going to protest, but at Shepard's glare, he said nothing. Tali shifted nervously behind them.

"Tali," Shepard said, looking over her shoulder, "can you hack that terminal down there?"

"Of course," Tali said. "Lieutenant Alenko did the hard part: taking down the Prime."

"Yeah, and he used his bare hands to do it," Shepard said, looking at Kaidan pointedly.

""It went down," he said simply.

"Only because you rushed with your biotics," Shepard said. "I still can't believe..."

"It was charging you," Kaidan replied, growing irritated. "Damn it, Shepard, you just stood there."

"I was waiting..."

"For what? For it to knock you flat?"

"To get enough energy to throw it," she finished. "I just needed to let my powers recharge."

"It would have been on top of you by then!"

"I _had _it, Kaidan!"

"Keelah," Tali muttered, turning away. "I'll go ge the data. You two can...figure things out."

Shepard turned and blinked at the retreating quarian. She watched Tali wander down the slope to the remains of the geth encampment below, her three-toed boots crunching through the dry, brittle grass that covered the plateau they stood on. Off in the distance, a storm threatened, hanging heavily over the rough terrain of the empty planet. Behind them, the Mako was still sparking and sputtering. They'd had to jump out of it and use it for cover just minutes ago. Garrus wouldn't be happy about that. He was still angry that Shepard had taken Tali and not him on this mission, but as long as they were out here searching for geth, the quarian was the natural person to bring along. And, of course, Shepard had insisted on having Kaidan in her team. She never let him leave her side, though given how he'd taken on that geth just now, she wondered if she should have told him to stay on the ship.

Shepard looked down at Kaidan to find him considering her with narrowed eyes. "What?" she asked him, testily.

"That was...unprofessional," he said, slowly.

"Unprofessional?" she snapped. "Seriously? 'Unprofessional' Kaidan?"

"It was," he repeated.

"Is that all you think about, Alenko? Just...what people will think? What people will say?"

"Don't you?" he snapped back. "Hell, you're the commander. You know how delicate a business running a ship can be. We can't..." He broke off.

"We can't what?" Shepard pressed, growing angry. "Be intimate? Have sex? Because if I recall..."

"I was going to say argue in front of the crew," he said.

Shepard gritted her teeth and closed her eyes.

"You're right," she said after a moment. "No, you're right."

She sighed and readied a dose of medigel. Very carefully, she helped Kaidan unzip his jumpsuit and roll it down to his waist. Her stomach knotted as she gingerly pulled the fabric away from the burn. In spite of her care, some of the skin came off with it, and Kaidan hissed a curse under his breath.

"Sorry," she said.

"It's...alright," he replied.

As Kaidan held his arms up, Shepard tore open the side of his undershirt and carefully began to apply medigel to the burn. Thankfully, the scratch where the geth prime's energy pulse had ripped past him it didn't look too deep. With medication, it began to heal quickly. Shepard felt her tension leaving her as she became certain that Kaidan would be alright.

"Thanks," Kaidan murmured, not meeting her eyes.

"You're welcome," she told him.

In light of their immediate conversation, Shepard tried not to think of how much she wanted to continue on and rip the rest of the shirt right off of him, to pull him to her and assure herself that he was truly safe and alive. But she couldn't do that, she told herself, and not just because of the wound. Tali was just within view, tapping away on that strange terminal out in the middle of a field, and besides, the Mako was still smoking behind them. It wasn't exactly the best venue for an interlude, she realized, frowning. Not that cheap hotels or midnight gardens or her quarters were that much better. Shepard scowled to herself. She knew her thoughts weren't at all appropriate, given that they had just been fighting for their lives, but she just couldn't help it.

"Don't take a risk like that again," she told him, tension creeping into her voice.

"I should say the same to you," he replied, his tone steely. Shepard met his eyes and frowned. He was glaring at her as if she had disobeyed his order – not the other way around.

"Watch it, lieutenant," she said.

"So it's 'lieutenant' now, is it?" Kaidan frowned. "Tell me something, Shepard: why is it that when you don't like how things are going, you pull the commander card, but then whenever I act like an officer, too, it just pisses you off?"

"I don't..."

"Bullshit," he snapped, surprising her. "Just the other day you did that. You jump back and forth between being professional and being...otherwise so fast that it makes my head spin."

"No, I don't," she practically sputtered. His words made her angry, but they also made her blush. Had she been doing that? She wondered. She didn't think she had, but then again...

"Don't you?" Kaidan asked. He started to fold his arms across his chest, then winced at the pain and let them fall to his sides. "What about when Wrex caught us at the lockers? Or the other day on our coffee break?"

"I..." She stopped and frowned. "I didn't mean it like that. Okay, so I'm bossy," she admitted. "I'm used to having my way."

"Yeah, well," Kaidan shrugged. "That's fine when you're the CO, but it makes things difficult when it's...us."

"Difficult enough for you to jump out in front of a Prime when I told you to stay down?" she snapped, eyes narrowing.

"It was _charging_ you."

"I _had_ it," she said through gritted teeth.

"Damn it, Shepard," Kaidan cried, "Why can't you just let me protect you?"

Shepard blinked in surprise, then sat back on her heels. Kaidan looked up at her in exasperation, then looked away.

"Is that what this is about?" she asked after a long moment.

"I just..." he sighed. "Look, I know you can handle yourself," he gave a bitter laugh. "Yeah, you can handle yourself. The way you fight – It's unbelievable. I've never seen a biotic like you – hell, a soldier like you. Most of the time you're careful, but then you pull these stunts and... It's distracting, Shepard. Sometimes I can barely keep myself focused. I mean, I don't want you to stop bringing me with you on these missions, but it's hard to see you take those risks, you know?"

"So you were trying to put yourself in harm's way...for me?"

"It was stupid, I know," Kaidan said, shaking his head. "Look, Shepard," he said, raising his eyes to hers. "You can't keep...putting yourself in danger like that. On the battlefield – or on the ship," he added, cutting her off when she opened her mouth to speak.

"On the ship?"

"People will talk," he said, looking at her almost pleadingly. "You've got to stop...looking at me like you do. Stop teasing me like you do. Someone's going to figure it out..."

"If they haven't already," she muttered.

"...and it's going to get back to the brass."

"You've been thinking about this a lot, haven't you?" she asked.

"Haven't you?" he wanted to know.

"Not really. I mean, if it comes up..." She shrugged. "I'm a Spectre."

"And I'm a lieutenant," Kaidan said angrily, glaring at her. "They're not going to court martial you, but what do you think they'd do to me?" He shook his head and looked out over the view of the hills beyond, rolling golden under the purple sky. "If they knew about us, they'd transfer me, at the very least. How could I _not _think about that – all the damn time?"

"I wouldn't let them do that," Shepard said, firmly.

"Oh?" he raised an eyebrow. "And what are you going to do? Shout down the entire Alliance?"

"If I have to," she said, raising her chin.

In spite of everything, Kaidan chuckled and shook his head. "I don't doubt you would, Shepard. It's just...I don't think it would do any good. You answer to the Council now, but I still answer to the Alliance. That's my job, you know?"

Shepard opened her mouth to speak, but no sound came out. Instead, she just watched Kaidan as his eyes grew more troubled.

"And you, Shepard," he said at last, "God, if anyone knew what we were doing, your reputation would..."

"Come on, Kaidan," she said, shaking her head. "My reputation already took a beating back in Basic. You can't pin a scarlet letter on me more firmly than that did."

Kaidan's eyes darkened. "That's not what I meant. And besides, I don't want... Not because of me, anyway." He raised his eyes to hers. "Shepard, you have to realize that what we're doing could..."

"Get you in trouble?" she suggested, frowning.

"Get us both in trouble," Kaidan said. "Hell, it could get the crew in trouble."

"So what are you saying, Kaidan?" Shepard asked. "Are we back 'just officers'? 'Just friends' - _again_? Breaking up with me for two weeks didn't seem to work very well, but maybe that's what you want after all." She scowled and stood.

"I never..." Kaidan blinked at her, then hauled himself to his feet. "When did I break up with you?"

"Over a bowl of ramen, if I remember right," Shepard said. She holstered her pistol and began to brush the grass from her knees. "At a damn sushi bar in the wards."

"I didn't...That wasn't..." Kaidan looked at her in confusion, his dark brows drawn together.

"Wasn't it?" Shepard fumed.

"No," he said, quietly. "I just was telling you that we couldn't bunk together, that's all."

Shepard tossed her head and brushed her hair from her eyes. The wind blew it back into her face at once. "So you didn't intend...?"

"No!" he exclaimed. "I just..." He shrugged. "Hell, I don't know." He shook his head and raised his eyes to hers. "I don't know, Shepard. I just...don't."

"You don't know about us?" she asked, eyes narrowing, "Or you don't know about us?"

He looked at her, confused. "Is there...a difference?"

"Are you not sure about us as a couple or..." She searched for a way to explain what she meant, but came up blank.

"I'm sure I...want you," Kaidan said slowly, softly, "I just...this." He waved a hand. "This – all of this. I don't know how to do this. We said we'd be more, but..."

"But you still haven't done a damn thing about it."

"We're on duty, Shepard," he said wearily.

"We're always on duty," she scowled.

"Exactly," he murmured. "Shepard, what the hell do you expect me to do?"

She sighed. "I have no idea," she admitted.

"Okay, I got it," Tali said, hurrying back to them. "It's a lot of data, so it may take a while to sort through it all."

Shepard and Kaidan turned to face her. As the quarian tapped on her omnitool, Kaidan came to stand behind Shepard. When Tali wasn't looking, he swiftly tucked her hair behind her ear, then let his hand trail down her arm. He grabbed her gloved hand, giving it a small squeeze. Shepard swallowed, her throat suddenly dry. She still felt angry and hurt, but strangely she also felt the tension easing from her at Kaidan's touch. She squeezed his hand back, then let his hand drop as Tali looked up at them again.

"Some of these geth outposts are as far away as the Omega Nebula," she said. "Amada, Batalla... not as many as I expected, though," she added thoughtfully. "That's...strange. Given how many geth there must be, it's odd we can't find evidence of more of them. It's like...only a fraction of their numbers have left the veil."

"That could be a good thing or a bad thing," Shepard said, suspicious. "Let's just hope they aren't planning for some major offensive. Well, let's fix the Mako and get ourselves picked up."

"Garrus is going to love what you did there, commander," Kaidan said, nodding at the smoking tank.

"I thought the commander's use of cover was quite clever, actually," Tali replied.

"Kaidan's being sarcastic, Tali," Shepard explained. "I mean, Alenko..."

"I know what sarcasm is, commander," Tali said, her voice sounding like she was holding back a laugh. "We quarians are quite good at it, actually. I was being sarcastic as well."

"Oh," Shepard said. She turned to see Kaidan hiding a smile behind his hand. "Okay," she said, eyes narrowing, "if we're done teasing the commander and mocking her driving, then let's slap some omnigel on this thing and call for a pick up."

"Joker's going to be a while," Kaidan told her. "He was scanning for mineral deposits."

"That's right," Shepard said. "Well, better him than us. Good thing the mess sergeant packed us a lunch."

"She did?" Tali asked, brightly.

"Sure thing," Shepard said. She went to the Mako, carefully climbed up the side and returned with three small boxes. "One for the dextro-based mechanic and two for the eternally-hungry biotics," she said, presenting them to her team. "Eat up."

As Kaidan repaired the Mako, Shepard and Tali ate. Then Kaidan came and ate his lunch while Shepard drank from a thermos of luke-warm coffee and Tali analyzed the geth data. When Kaidan had finished eating, Shepard grudgingly shared her coffee with him, saying:

"We'll talk again later, okay, Kaidan?"

"Sure thing, commander," he said, nodding. "But I don't know what else to say."

"Yeah," she murmured. "Me either."

The two of them sat there on the hilltop, waiting for Joker, talking about the geth, talking about the mission, asking Tali questions about the Migrant Fleet and how, exactly, sarcasm worked in a culture where everyone was masked and you couldn't read people's expressions. They watched the purple sky cry rain over the distant fields of gold and felt the wind gather strength as it whistled over the land. Together, they enjoyed a rare moment of calm on that distant planet, looking out over the coming storm.


	41. About Horizon

_Chapter 41_

_('About Horizon...')_

_**Author's Note:** I have always been a little...um...obsessed? with the post-Horizon email. I love it for it's linguistic ambiguity and narrative implications, even as I hate it because it's...well, not happy. And it's the last "official" word from Kaidan in Mass Effect 2. (Not that it will be Kaidan's last word in this fic, necessarily. I guess it means that I plan to keep going, so long as people want to read on. At this point, I'm not sure if I could stop writing Shenko even if I wanted to.)_

_Anyhow, I wrote this chapter ages ago after multiple readings of that email and I have been revising it ever since. I think it's time to post it. So here it is and it is SUPER LONG. Wow, it's long. __Oh well, there was a lot I felt that K/K would unpack from that one missive. Hope you enjoy it._

_

* * *

_

Shepard stared at the message title for a full minute before looking up.

* * *

_About Horizon..._

_

* * *

_

"I'll be in my quarters if anyone needs me Kelly," she said in as officious a voice as she could manage. "Set a course for Daratar."

"Of course, commander," Kelly replied. "Whatever you..."

Shepard didn't hear the rest as the elevator slid shut. She tapped her foot impatiently as she waited for the doors to open again. As soon as they did, she strode into her quarters and headed straight for her desk. Cerberus had access to her accounts, she knew. But she had also seen the encryption on that message. That encryption and the heading told her everything she needed to know about who had sent it.

The question that remained was _why_.

Was it too much to hope that Kaidan wasn't angry at her any more? Or was this going to be a written version of the set-down he'd given her on Horizon? Either way, she knew she couldn't read this message down by the CIC. She had to be up here, where whatever reaction she had to this missive would be hidden away from the wondering eyes of her too-interested crew.

She just prayed that Mordin had gotten all the monitoring devices pulled from her room like he said he had. He'd been offended when she asked him if he was sure he'd gotten all of them, saying: "Not hack job like Gardiner. Also, wash hands after using the necessary."

Not that she didn't trust Mordin, but out of habit, Shepard positioned herself between the camera in the corner and the computer screen. She would do whatever she could to keep this message private. At her elbow, the face-down picture frame made a squelching noise, as if in weak protest to her continued neglect. She reached for it, almost lifted it, then let her hand drop. She'd see what Kaidan had to say, first. Even as she thought that, it struck her as rather childish notion.

Frowning to herself, Shepard logged into the extranet and brought up her Alliance account. The message wasn't there. _Damn_, she thought. That meant it had already been forwarded. She wasn't surprised at that development, but it still annoyed her. She just hoped Kaidan's encryption had kept his message from the prying eyes that might be monitoring the Cerberus email systems.

Shepard logged out of the Alliance account, logged into her Cerberus account, then opened the email, doing her best to ignore the knot tightening in her stomach. She clicked on the email and a passkey box popped up.

_Clever man_, Shepard thought, smiling in spite of her growing apprehension. The passkey was likely something only she knew about, something like...

_Ilos._

It didn't work. Shepard frowned. Okay, she thought. She could understand why Kaidan wouldn't use the same password twice. So that must mean it was...

_Ilos night._ Nope. _Ilos...evening_? Shepard frowned. What the hell could it be? _Coffee break?_ _Normandy?_

A message popped up on the screen:

_5 Failed Password Attempts. Hint: You once said you believed in jumping._

Jumping? What the...? Shepard wracked her brain even as she silently applauded Kaidan's tech skill. Only, that same ingenuity that was meant to keep Cerberus out would also keep her out, unless she could figure out what that 'believing in jumping' meant.

Suddenly, she understood. Shepard felt a lump in her throat as she typed in a single word to the waiting box:

_Faith_.

The email opened. Shepard swallowed, then read...

* * *

Kaidan logged his omnitool into the barracks wireless extranet connection. Now that he was here, he could finally check his mail. He logged into his outbox, his stomach churning, his head still pounding in spite of the medication he'd just taken.

_Never send a message in anger_, his mother had once said. Well, yesterday, he had sent a message in...something. He remembered sitting at the grimy extranet station. He remembered crafting a letter, line by careful line, agonizing over what to say, what he should include, and what he should leave out. He hadn't wanted to come off as desperate: laying his heart bare was something he had done on Horizon and he wasn't sure Shepard would appreciate him doing it again. And yet, he hadn't wanted to be cold, either. Shepard had sent encrypted files, and he saw that as an olive branch of sorts. He wanted to acknowledge that, but he still felt...

Hell, he didn't know _what_ he felt, exactly: raw and angry, but saddened and confused, too. He had written the letter as if he was a negotiator, letting all the warring parts of him have a say rather than writing as a whole man who knew exactly what he wanted. And adding to that inner mess was the maddening sensation that he could still feel Shepard's kiss on his neck.

Then, as he had finished his message, his ship had suddenly arrived. And in a panic not to lose his work, Kaidan had sent the email.

He realized the mistake at once, but it was too late to take it back. And in that moment, he couldn't quite remember what he had said. He didn't have time to re-read his work, so he'd boarded the freighter back to the Citadel. He spent the whole flight with a raging headache, wracking his brain to remember what, exactly, he had written. He slept fitfully, woke to a migraine, docked at the Citadel, stumbled through customs, got some meds, checked into the barracks, and now he lay back on his bed, looking at his omnitool with bleary eyes.

With a frown, Kaidan opened the message. He wasn't sure he wanted to see this, and yet, he felt compelled to read all the same...

* * *

_Shepard,_

_I'm sorry for what I said back on Horizon._

_

* * *

_

Shepard let out a breath. She closed her eyes, breathed in through her nose and out through her mouth.

Okay. She thought. This was...good. She had been so angry – so confused and hurt and ashamed and furious and indignant, that Kaidan's simple apology took most of the fight out of her.

"I'm sorry, too," she murmured quietly.

She smiled just a little and looked to the face-down picture frame. Then she frowned.

Kaidan still had a _lot_ of explaining to do.

* * *

Kaidan's lips set in a thin line.

_Yeah, I _am_ sorry,_ he thought.

Then he thought again of the things he had said and "sorry" didn't really seem to cover it. But, the truth was, although he was sorry, he was still angry, too. He wanted Shepard to apologize in return, damn it. He wanted to know why she'd left him for _two years_ without a word.

Kaidan frowned.

Shepard still had a _lot_ of explaining to do.

* * *

_I spent two years pulling myself back together after you went down with the Normandy. _

_It took me a long time to get over my guilt for surviving and move on. _

* * *

Shepard blinked at the screen, feeling as if she had been hit by a thunderbolt.

Two years?

She blinked again.

Really, _two years?_

Shepard swallowed against the lump rising in her throat.

All this time, she had never stopped and considered – never truly _imagined _– what the attack on the Normandy had looked like from the pods. She had seen her death from one angle, and that vision was forever seared into her resurrected brain. Yet Kaidan had seen her death from another place entirely. After all, she thought, if their positions had been reversed – if _Kaidan_ were to die...

Shepard sucked in a breath. She couldn't even think of that. And just trying to do so made her realize something that was hard to admit:

She had acted like a selfish bitch on Horizon.

When she had pictured her eventual reunion with Kaidan, she now realized she had thought of herself more than she had thought of Kaidan. She had thought of how she'd say hello to him, how she'd kiss him, where she would have him bunk on the ship – with her, of course, in the bed big enough for two. She had even planned a way to explain her new body to him, to ask him if he minded that she'd involuntarily had some work done.

But she realized now that she had never really thought of where _he _would be coming from - what he had endured. Certainly, her heart had broken at first to think he might have suffered for her sake, but she had sort of...lost sight of that in the bustle and mess that had followed after the initial revelation that she'd been _dead__._ She hadn't considered that in all that time, her death might have changed Kaidan. Even as she held him on Horizon she had assumed he was exactly the same. But of course, how _could _he be the same after two years had passed – especially two years after the loss of his ship and his friends and...well, her? She had wondered if Kaidan knew she was alive, had hoped he hadn't forgotten her, but she hadn't really imagined him _mourning_ her. She certainly had never imagined that he'd be hearing rumors about her and Cerberus and wondering if they were true.

And then to find her alive - and with Cerberus after all... And then, God, the way she'd tried to get him to stay! She'd spoken to him as if she was recruiting any other random stranger for her mission. She cringed anew to think of what she had said:

_I could use someone like you on my crew, Kaidan_. _It'll be just like old times._

Hell, no _wonder_ he hadn't wanted to come with her. Who would want to join a former lover who talked like _that_? She hadn't _asked_ him to join her – she'd just _told_ him to join her. She'd been thinking like a CO again, she thought bitterly. She liked to think that she had set aside her bossy nature, but it kept rearing its ugly head all the time – even with Kaidan. No, she corrected herself, _especially_ with Kaidan. When push came to shove, she'd often retreated behind her rank. Kaidan had accused her of it on more than one occasion, and he'd been right. She had assumed that once she found him, he'd come with her at once, that like Garrus and Tali, he'd respond to her with unquestioning loyalty.

Only, given the view from where Kaidan now stood, she hadn't earned his loyalty at all. For all Kaidan knew, she'd left him, betrayed him, then tried to order him to his place at her side – or rather, his place at her back.

Shepard shook her head. She had appeared before him – alive, with Cerberus, without a word of warning – and then she had expected him to be pleased, grateful, _elated _even, to see her. And all the while, he had been reeling with questions and rumors and guilt and...grief. She'd couldn't even imagine.

To her shame, she hadn't _tried_ to imagine. All this while, she'd been thinking of her mission and herself, while Kaidan...

_God, _she thought, frowning at the screen, _the guy must have been through hell._

_

* * *

_

_God,_ Kaidan thought, frowning at the screen. _That sounded pathetic._

It was all true, but it sounded a lot worse reading it a day later. Two years to get over Shepard and, if her was honest with himself, what happened on Horizon proved that he never _had_ gotten over her.

Kaidan shook his head. Given that things with Shepard were now more complicated than ever, he wasn't sure when he _would _get over her.

* * *

_I'd finally let my friends talk me into going out for drinks with a doctor on the Citadel. _

_Nothing serious, but trying to let myself have a life again, you know?_

_

* * *

_

Wait. _What_?

Shepard's eyes narrowed as she read the sentence again. And again – and then again.

What the _hell_?

Shepard felt herself flaring, saw a flicker of blue flash along her fisted hand as she stared at the screen.

Kaidan had been out with some other woman?

_Alright, Valkyrie,_ she told herself, _it's okay. The guy thought you were dead. Hell, if he'd gotten married, it would have been understandable after two years._

_Yeah_, the other part of her replied, _but he's _mine_._

And what did that _mean_ that it was nothing serious? she thought, reading the lines again. If it wasn't serious, then why the hell had he mentioned it? Was that some kind of guy-code? Was he trying to tell her that she didn't matter to him anymore? Or was he trying to say that she'd screwed with his head so badly that he'd only just gotten over her? Or that he never had gotten over her?

Shepard scowled as her biotics flared again. This was ridiculous. She was not one for drama or second-guessing. All the drama of the past few days was enough to last her for a lifetime. So if Kaidan had up and found a new girlfriend, why hadn't he _said _so?

_Was he sleeping with her?_

Instead of seeing blue flares, Shepard now saw red cover her vision. If she ever met this doctor...

She took a breath and tried to think. If Kaidan said it wasn't serious, then it wasn't... right? Hell, she thought, reading the sentences again, his friends had talked him into the date. _Finally_ talked him into a date, so that meant... What? They'd been trying for a while to get Kaidan to see somebody new? Who were these "friends" anyway? she wondered. And had they known about _her_?

That was doubtful, she realized. Kaidan probably hadn't said anything about her, given how cautious he was about their fraternization. So maybe these friends had just tried to set him up with some other friend and he'd finally given in and gone on this...date. And it was just one date – right?

Shepard read the lines again. It certainly sounded like just one date. And besides, she told herself, trying to remain rational and objective, Kaidan said it wasn't serious. She felt herself clinging to those words. _So, do the logic, Shepard: one date is not serious and not serious is not sexual..._ Not for Kaidan, anyway, she assured herself. The man was nothing if not self-disciplined. He had gone without sex for years when she had first met him. Besides, he once said he wasn't in the habit of casual sex. But then, again, she thought, there _had_ been that shore-leave "mistake" he'd once mentioned...

Shepard now was seriously considering throwing that picture of Kaidan into the ship's trash compactor.

_He told you that he never wanted to repeat that mistake again,_ some calmer part of her mind said. _Just think how long it took for him to sleep with _you.

Shepard took a breath. Right. That was right.

_Yeah_, another, more worried part of her mind added, _but you two were officers – Fraternization was what had Kaidan slowing things down. There's nothing to stop him from doing whatever he likes with some doctor._

Shepard ground her teeth together. She felt her biotics flaring and her core temperature rising to a near feverish degree. What did that _mean_? she wanted to scream. And why the _hell _had Kaidan mentioned it?

* * *

_Damn_, Kaidan thought. Why had he mentioned _that_?

Maybe, he thought, he had written about Lisa to show Shepard that he could move on. Only the way he'd put it, it didn't sound like moving on. It made him sound like some pathetic sap who had spent the last two years mourning his dead girlfriend without being able to get over her at all, and then was only able to go out with another woman at the urging of his friends, and then only in a futile effort to get his life back. It sounded...sad, really.

So why had he written it?

With a sinking feeling, Kaidan realized that he felt strangely guilty about having gone on a date with Lisa at all. If he'd known Shepard was alive... But that was ridiculous, of course. He _hadn't_ known Shepard was alive and that was _Shepard's fault, _he thought, scowling. Given that Shepard had not contacted him these past _two years_, he had every right to see other people.

But the truth was, Kaidan thought, as he pinched the bridge of his nose and waited for the meds to kick in, he hadn't _wanted_ to see other people. Even after five horrible minutes with Shepard and one small, close-mouthed kiss to his neck, he knew this. Seeing her again just drove home the difference between her and everyone else he'd ever met: she had been..._right_ for him. She had looked at him and saw _him_ and not just his rank or file or biotics. She had been his best friend in a world of people who passed him by. And seeing her certainly drove home the difference between her and Lisa. Hell, the doctor didn't even like music. He wanted _Shepard_, damn it, wanted her as she had been all those years ago, before the Normandy attack and her disappearance and Cerberus and...everything.

The trouble was, of course, he wasn't sure if she was the same woman she had been all those years ago.

* * *

_Then I saw you, and everything pulled hard to port. __You were standing in front of me, but you were with Cerberus._

_I guess I really don't know who either of us is anymore._

_

* * *

_

_Exactly_, Kaidan thought. That was it exactly.

How the hell, how the _bloody_ hell could Shepard be with Cerberus? They were _terrorists_. They had killed an admiral; they had murdered innocents. They'd sent Marines to their deaths and were an embarrassment to humanity and a thorn in the side of the Alliance. Hell, she herself had sent the Alliance proof that they had been involved with the rachni cloning debacle.

The Shepard that Kaidan had loved was too principled to work with terrorists. If she'd bent the rules in the past, it had always been with good reason. So how could she possibly work for Cerberus unless she had changed somehow?

With a sudden sense of sorrow, Kaidan realized that he had changed, too. By trying to ignore his heart he hadn't killed it and by trying to forget Shepard he hadn't moved on. He'd just crystallized into a more brittle, machine-like version of the cautious man he'd once been.

So yes, he thought, reading his lines again. He had changed – and she had changed, too, if she was with Cerberus. And he really didn't recognize either of them anymore.

* * *

Shepard read Kaidan's words, then slammed her fist against the desk. Blue flickered all up her arm and she wanted to scream at the computer screen:

_I am NOT with Cerberus!_

Not really, she amended. And what did Kaidan mean, he didn't know her? Out of everyone she'd ever met, he was the only person who _did _know her, the only person she had ever let close enough to slip past her Valkyrie armor to see the woman hiding behind it. So for him to say...

Shepard paused, taking a deep breath. She re-read the words, trying to make sense of it all. She saw now that Kaidan had said he didn't know who she was _anymore_.

Shepard frowned. She wasn't sure if that was that much of an improvement. Clearly, Kaidan was convinced that Cerberus had changed her somehow, which was just...infuriating. She was trying so damn hard to stay true to her principles, to make sure that Cerberus _was not _changing her, and_ would not_ change her. So for him to say...

But then, she thought, feeling suddenly very weary and alone, maybe she had changed without knowing it. At the very least, she had given Kaidan no reason to think she was the same woman as before. He didn't know the details of her alliance with the three-headed demon-dog organization..._not_ that he'd taken the time to let her explain, she thought angrily.

No, he clearly thought she'd been alive and conscious this whole time, despite her assertions to the contrary. If she _had_ been ignoring him for two years, well then, he certainly would have every reason to think she had changed. After all, she couldn't think of any possible reason that she would have left him for two years other than, well, changing entirely...or being completely unconscious.

But it was the latter that was the case, not the former. Yet Kaidan had ignored the whole "I was dead" revelation to cling to this notion that she'd abandoned him.

Then again, Shepard thought, cocking her head, she had shied away using from the word "dead." The thought of being dead was...troubling. And besides, she wasn't sure she bought the whole "resurrection" story. She had seen the Project Lazarus data, but it was a lot to wrap one's head around. She still wondered if she might not have been preserved somehow: not truly dead, but not really alive either. She remembered now that she had hedged the facts: she had told Kaidan she'd been in "some kind of coma."

Shepard felt like kicking herself. Clearly "coma" had not conveyed to Kaidan the extent of her absence. He probably figured she'd come back after a few months or so and just...what? Puttered around the galaxy without him, joyriding on Cerberus' shiny new ship?

Damn it, she thought, pounding her fist on the desk again, why hadn't Kaidan given her time to explain? And why hadn't she realized she would need to?

Once again, Shepard thought with a sigh, she had neglected to think of how all this must have looked to Kaidan. She'd simply said, "It's been a long time," when "Before you say anything, know that I was _dead_," should have been the first words out of her mouth.

_You could have told him earlier, _some part of her mind whispered. _You could have sent him a message right from the start if you had really tried._

Shepard frowned. Yes, she could have. But she hadn't wanted the Illusive Man to know about Kaidan and she hadn't wanted Anderson to know either, so she hadn't left a message or written to him...

She'd been too proud, she realized with a start. She had thought that by keeping Kaidan at arm's length, she could keep him from harm. She should have realized that Kaidan would rather be put in danger and know the truth than be kept in the dark and kept safe.

_We're alike in that respect_, she thought, laughing bitterly. She should have remembered that.

* * *

_Do you even remember that night before Ilos? _

_That night meant everything to me... maybe it meant as much to you. _

* * *

Kaidan winced at those lines.

_Hell, Alenko_, he thought. _Why don't you just send your dead, beaten heart through the extranet while you're at it?_

But it was true. Ilos had been in his mind all the time. He had thought of it when he'd allowed himself to think, had dreamed of it so many nights. Ilos had been the start of it all. It had been the night he went from trying to pretend that he wasn't falling for Shepard to realizing that he'd long since toppled off the edge. It was the night he'd gone from wondering if he should act on his feelings to thinking about the future – a future with her – and wondering how long it would take to get there. It was the night he'd let go of his control over his biotics, his emotions, his heart, and for once in his life, dived headfirst into unknown waters. He had, contrary to his usual caution, almost delighted in the uncertainty, if only it meant that he could be with the woman he had come to love. And that night before Ilos was the night that he realized he truly did love her.

Ilos had also been the night when, to his surprise, Shepard given him something that he had never expected of her.

Ilos was the night when Shepard had become...his.

* * *

Shepard blinked at the screen.

Did she remember Ilos?

Did she still have a _brain_? Of course she remembered Ilos! God, she thought, had she really seemed so changed that he had to ask her _that?_ For heaven's sake! He'd been her _first_, technicalities notwithstanding. She knew her conservative upbringing sometimes gave her a rather skewed view of things, but she figured that even in more sophisticated circles, giving a guy your virginity still counted for something. For her, it had all been completely new: not just physically, but all the feelings that went with it. That night was like...stepping into some world that existed for her and Kaidan alone. She had found that she couldn't keep him at arm's length any more and she didn't want to. She had to let him in. And far from resenting that new-found vulnerability, she found it made her feel...strong.

Plus, that night had been _good _- like, really damn good. So how could it _not_ mean something to her? Shepard scowled at the screen, wishing she could somehow slap Kaidan's email on the side of the head.

And what about everything after? she wondered. The times she and Kaidan had spent alone together were like fragile treasures she kept close to her chest, hidden carefully under her armor. Their lovemaking had been passionate some times, and some times they had been completely silly – laughing more than kissing. Some times they had just laid there and talked and some times had almost been desperate. And yet, each time, she had felt like she was discovering his touch all over again. She thought it had been like that for him, too, but to read this...

She knew he'd always been jumpy about regs after that night, but had Ilos truly been the only time Kaidan had been able to enjoy himself? Shepard sighed and tried to make sense of his words. Alright, so the night before Ilos meant everything to him, which was...sweet. She wanted to read hope into those words, but she wasn't sure if she should. If that night had meant so much to him – so much so that he would mention it specifically – then surely he was still thinking about that, and therefore thinking about _her_, right? But if he had to ask if Ilos had _meant_ anything...

Her heart sank. How was it that Kaidan had to ask this? All this time, she thought she'd made it abundantly obvious how much Ilos meant to her, how much all their intimacy meant to her - hell, how much _he _meant to her. She knew she had often joked around to keep things light, had sometimes reverted to professionalism when she was uncertain of how to handle things. She knew she'd sometimes been flippant or pushy, difficult or sulky. But had she somehow failed to show him that she truly cared for him?

But now that she thought if it, she had never told Kaidan in so many words that she loved him.

Shepard frowned.

She couldn't remember why she hadn't, but...she hadn't.

* * *

___But a lot has changed in the last two years and I can't just put that aside._

___

* * *

_

_Exactly_, Kaidan thought, nodding at his own words.

In spite of Ilos, in spite of what he had once felt for Shepard, he couldn't put the last two years aside. Whatever she had been doing - and he certainly hoped she'd have the decency to tell him what she had been doing - he could not ignore all that grief and pain so easily.

It wasn't that he didn't want to, Kaidan thought. He just knew himself well enough to know that he couldn't.

* * *

_Well, that's fair_, Shepard thought, folding her arms across her chest.

She didn't like how those lines followed Kaidan's tender admission about Ilos, but she could appreciate the sentiment all the same. A lot _had _changed. Kaidan had changed and she had changed - though not as much as he seemed to think. But still, yes, she could admit she'd changed a little.

Hell, she was now a blue-eyed L5 with a buzz cut working for a power-hungry anonymous billionaire who was backing her mission to take on a pack of 6-foot cockroach kidnappers. It would sound like the plot to a cheesy movie if it wasn't for the fact that it had become her life.

* * *

_But please be careful. I've watched too many people close to me die - on Eden Prime, on Virmire, on Horizon, on the Normandy. __I couldn't bear it if I lost you again._

_If you're still the woman I remember, I know you'll find a way to stop these Collector attacks._

_But Cerberus is too dangerous to be trusted. Watch yourself._

_

* * *

_

Kaidan shook his head. Well, if he hadn't already made it abundantly clear how deep his survivor's guilt ran, he had just now.

And really, he thought, if he was honest with himself, that was the root of a lot of his anger about Horizon right there: he just couldn't get over the fact that he kept...surviving. Sometimes it had been because of his own skill and cunning, his own planning and fighting. But many times, it was dumb luck, pure and simple – or it had been Shepard watching out for him. She'd saved him on Virmire, saved him on the Normandy. She'd placed her own life on the line so many times for him that it made him sick to his stomach to think of it. And even though he was grateful, even though he was proud of her, some extremely old-fashioned part of him still demanded the honor of protecting _her_.

_As if she'd ever allow that_, Kaidan thought wryly. The woman behaved as if she knew no fear. He supposed it had to do with the strength of her biotics, but she approached every fight as if it was simply a puzzle to be solved, not something that might actually end her life. He supposed that was her defense mechanism, the key to her survival, and yet, watching her come so close to death, time and again, had continually shaken him. Even now, he could remember with a chill of fear the video footage of how she'd taken down those Collectors. Seeing her rush from crate to crate, using whatever cover she could in that open space, firing that insane laser gun that she had picked up God only knew where... He had thought he was going to lose her all over again, even though he knew how the fight would end.

_Hell, Alenko, _he thought. _You just might lose her all over again. You don't know how her current fight is going to end._

He might, he realized. He might lose her. And the thought tore him to pieces. On the one hand, he wanted to go to her, to keep her safe. But on the other hand, she had chosen Cerberus. Whatever the reason and however uneasy the alliance, she had chosen them. She had a new ship now, and a new crew that included Garrus and some other biotic. She said she was doing this to end the Collector attacks and on some level, Kaidan admired that. Hell, after Horizon, he knew just how badly the Collectors needed to be stopped.

But he still didn't understand why she'd picked _Cerberus _to do it.

Her current mission was going to be dangerous – he guessed that even though he knew very little about the Collectors. He'd have to ask Anderson for access to Alliance files on the species. He just hoped Shepard realized that by working with Cerberus, she was more likely to get stabbed in the back by those terrorists than she would be shot down in front by the Collectors. He just hoped she would heed his warning and watch herself.

_So_ _that's why you came back to the Citadel and left her with Cerberus?_ Kaidan winced at the whispering of his conscience. He felt guilty even now for walking away. He wanted to keep Shepard safe, but the woman continually insisted on placing herself in dangerous situations. And this might be the most dangerous situation of all. She had left the Alliance for this fight, and in doing so had allied with the enemy and gone to a place he simply couldn't follow.

Kaidan sighed. He supposed that this was one battle that he'd have to let Shepard fight alone – as much as he wished she wouldn't.

* * *

What the...?

Shepard felt tears spring to her eyes. She wiped them away ruthlessly.

She was going after the Collectors and that's all he had to say? She was flying into the Omega 4 relay, the gateway from which no ship ever returned and that was all he had to fucking _say_? Did he not realize she might _die _out there – wherever _there_ turned out to be? Or was he just that confident in her abilities?

Did he even _care_?

Shepard pinched the bridge of her nose. That horrible buzzing had come back. This was just too much. And that warning about Cerberus...

_Thanks, Kaidan_, she thought. _I already knew I didn't trust them. I'll watch myself, but doing so would be a hell of a lot easier if you were here with me._

A thought suddenly occurred to her. Shepard let go of her nose to let her hand drop to her lap.

If Kaidan had come with her, then that would mean putting him in danger. As much as she wanted to think that he would pull through, she simply didn't know. She didn't know who would live or die in the end. Hell, _she_ might die – the Illusive Man's five billion credit toy, gone up in smoke. It wasn't that she didn't care about her other friends, of course: Garrus, Tali, and Joker – she didn't want to put _any_ of them at risk. But if Kaidan were to die during one of their battles...

Again, she could not think of it. She remembered the horrible fear that she'd lost him to the attack on Horizon, then the overwhelming, stupefying relief when she learned she had not. If he was safe, then she had something to return to. With that thought, she suddenly wondered if perhaps this wasn't for the best. As much as she wanted Kaidan at her back, even more than that, she wanted to return to him.

* * *

_When things settle down a little... maybe... I don't know. Just take care._

_-Kaidan_

_

* * *

_

Kaidan let out a breath, then shut down his omnitool and let his head fall back against the pillow. The meds were finally kicking in, dulling the pain, but the growing sense of warm fog all through his skull did nothing to lessen the ache in his chest.

_Well, hell,_ he thought. _That was embarrassing_.

He'd just laid himself bare in an email to Shepard, detailed how much he'd been torn up about her – how much he was _still_ torn up about her, and now he had no idea what would come of it.

Those last lines were non-committal and he knew it. It completely reflected how he felt. He'd been to heaven, then to hell, then to purgatory as far as Shepard was concerned. Now, he was just in limbo, wondering what she would say back and how long she would be working with Cerberus. Her mission – if you could call it that with terrorists backing it – would hopefully be short-lived. With any luck, Kaidan thought, she'd be back in council space within a month or so, and he'd be able to meet up with her and see...

What would he see?

Well, he thought, he'd see if it had really been _her_ that he had loved, or just some illusion. Shepard had always been so charming, so damn charismatic. How could anyone help but turn and stare at a star shooting across the sky? He had been dazzled by her like everyone else had in their own way, only he had known her more intimately because...

He wasn't really sure why she had chosen him anymore. He thought it was love, true and real like in the novels he'd read as a kid. Thinking Shepard was dead left his belief in her love intact. But seeing her alive had trampled all those beliefs underfoot. Then getting that email from her had revived hope – but not certainty.

He still couldn't explain why she'd left him, nor why she'd acted so strangely on Horizon. He didn't know what to think anymore, except to think that whatever they once had was not at all what he thought it was. So maybe it had all been in his head.

Kaidan sighed.

And yet...

* * *

Shepard frowned at the screen. She closed the computer and let her eyes drift shut.

That email had taken her from relief to joy to complete and utter heartache. And even after reading it line by line, it still made no sense to her. The only part she fully understood was the "maybe" at the end.

But "maybe." Maybe. Always _maybe_ with Kaidan. A flare of anger rose in her chest. A blue flare of biotics echoed it across her fingertips. The man was so damn cautious. He had always held back, always hesitated. At first, she had admired it, later, it amused her. When they were...well, whatever they were after Ilos, it had irritated her – even driven her to act completely recklessly on a few occasions. Now, that caution of his made her want to scream.

Ever careful Kaidan. She didn't think of herself as impulsive, exactly, but she'd always been one to make a decision and go with it, right until the bitter end. Even this gig with Cerberus was like that: she'd agreed to get it done and she would. But Kaidan had always hung back. And now she found herself wondering if he had ever really wanted her, or if she had just dived into their relationship headfirst, dragging Kaidan down with her.

She knew she had an...overwhelming personality. She tended to shock and awe people. That was part of why she'd liked Kaidan so much. From the start, he had taken a stand around her. It wasn't that he was standing _against_ her – just...standing. He gave her his opinion, asked for or not. He didn't worship her like Liara did or look up to her like Tali or Ashley or even Garrus had. He was just...there, calm and secure and...Kaidan.

But maybe she'd read it all wrong, and somehow she had pushed him into something he didn't really want. Maybe he'd felt pressured by her rank and well, just _her_ and he had always been pulling back and she hadn't listened. He had walked away from her on Horizons. Whatever he felt, whatever his reasons, he had walked away. So clearly, whatever they had was not at all what she thought it was. And maybe it had all been in her head.

Shepard sighed.

And yet...

* * *

And yet, he still wanted her.

Kaidan laid his head back against the pillow. He thought back on everything he had written, everything he had said, everything Shepard had said, everything that had happened in the past week, in the past year... He thought back to everything that had happened since he first met Shepard and realized he was sure of just one thing:

He still wanted her.

He still...loved her.

At least, he loved the Shepard he thought he had known. If she was somehow still out there, and if she came back to him...

Kaidan stared up at the ceiling, letting the meds ease the pulsing in the skull and quiet the questions in his mind. There were so many questions: Why had Shepard been lost when he had lived? What was it about her that had him unable to turn away from her, even now? Was she with Cerberus or not? And why the hell had she left him without a word for two years?

He didn't know. He had no idea what the future would hold – for her or for him. Anderson held the key to his next assignment and he didn't know where the next few weeks would take him. So as for what would happen next, he didn't know. Just like before, back on the Normandy when he'd been trying to figure things out with Shepard, he didn't know. But he knew what he felt, and embarrassed as he might be about those feelings, he couldn't deny them.

He'd wait to see what Shepard wanted. He couldn't really resolve anything or get any kind of closure until he knew why she'd left him and why she'd come back. So he'd wait and see, and maybe...

Kaidan sighed, closed his eyes, and let the meds push him down into the soft pillow of dreams.

He didn't know much of anything anymore, he thought sleepily. But one thing he had heard once before was "Where there is life, there is hope." And Shepard was, by whatever strange twist of fate, alive. So that meant...didn't it?...that there was still hope...

* * *

Shepard stared out at her empty room, at the too-big bed and the window above it. The slight blue of the Normandy's FTL emissions flickered over the glass. She watched the dancing pattern that they made, like cold fire, and let her mind wander.

She hardly knew what to think. The only word she currently saw before her mind was a big, fat "maybe."

Shepard scowled and fell back against her chair. She didn't want Kaidan's "maybe." She wanted his certainty. She wanted Kaidan to be as determined as he'd been that night before Ilos, as determined as he'd been...

When he left Horizon?

Shepard frowned even as she thought that. She was being unfair, she realized. She had no reason to expect Kaidan to be certain about her when she'd given him so little reason to be. Besides her long absence, she had never once put her mouth where her heart was and told him that she loved him all those years ago.

And she _had _loved him.

She felt her heart twisting in her chest.

She still loved him.

Shepard felt the buzzing in her head finally cease, no doubt soothed to stillness by the hum of the ship and the flicker of the blue emissions above. She read the email once again in its entirety, noticing the last lines especially:

_When things settle down a little... maybe... I don't know. Just take care._

Well, she thought, frowning, that seemed clear enough: Kaidan didn't want to talk right now. He wanted to wait until "things settled down" – whatever the hell _that _meant. She really wanted to write to him immediately, but decided to defer to his wishes on this one. Clearly, the guy needed some space.

Shepard stood, then heard the sad little squelching sound that the picture frame made as it flickered off. She paused, then sat down again, slowly. Carefully, she lifted the picture frame, almost afraid to see what she had done to it in her anger.

The deep, brown eyes of Kaidan Alenko stared back at her from the unbroken screen, his expression as inscrutable as ever. Shepard set the frame upright on her desk. She folded her arms before her, then laid her chin on her arms. She stared into Kaidan's eyes, as if trying to read the real Kaidan's mind across the distance of space and years and misunderstanding.

And as she did so, Shepard realized that she was certain of just one thing as far as Kaidan was concerned: She had no idea what the future would hold, no idea if she could stop Collectors or the Reapers, no idea if she would ever get free of the tangle that was Cerberus. But someday, on that longed-for someday when "things settled down," she would find Kaidan again, and even if his answer was still "maybe," she would...

She would tell him that she loved him.

And she would tell him that she was sorry.

She had no idea what he would say in return, and frankly, she realized that didn't matter. She loved him and she was sorry and he deserved to hear her say so. She would tell him that, and then she'd let the pieces fall where they may - even if his answer broke her heart.

Shepard sighed, let her eyes slide shut, and as she drifted off into dreamless sleep, she smiled.

He'd written her at least, hadn't he? So...she supposed...that must mean there was still hope...

* * *

Hope...

And both of them hoped that hope would be enough.


	42. Send

_Chapter 42_

_(send)_

_

* * *

_

_**Author's Note**: __Some of you know there was a bit of...drama, shall we say, regarding the fact that sections of this story and another by a fellow ff author appeared to be lifted for another fan fiction on another site. I believe the incident to be smoothed over and all parties to be on the same page, now. However, I just want to take a moment to say what really should go without saying:_

_**If you like my work, thank you.** If you are inspired by my work, I'm honored. Just please do not lift from my work directly and please acknowledge me for any ideas you take from me, just as I acknowledge the inspirations for my ideas: BioWare, and Kaidan, and Norse mythology, and all the folks on the KAST – you rock._

_My muse felt a little drop-kicked by all this, but then I reminded myself that I'm writing for my own amusement, my own growth as a writer, and for the wonderful fans and authors I've met through this process. You guys inspire me. Thank you._

_Oh, and full props and much love to my man, who helped me hash out futuristic email protocol scenarios, and then gave me an afternoon all to myself to write without interruption. This is my best attempt to make sense out of the missing "send" button on Cerberus' email in game..._

* * *

Shepard started awake, nearly falling out of her chair in the process. For a moment, her eyes landed on the picture of Kaidan and she felt a warm rush of fondness and nostalgia.

Then she remembered.

Scowling, she rubbed a hand over her face. One of these days, she swore to herself, she was going to wake up and _not_ be working with Cerberus. One of these days, if she managed to live that long, she was going to wake up, roll over, and find herself wrapped tightly in the strong arms of...

She looked at Kaidan's picture, found his face was still half-frowning at her. Why was that expression of his so hard to read? she wondered angrily.

Shepard sighed. Maybe she would never be with him again, she acknowledged. The thought was just too depressing to face this early in the morning, so she pushed it away. She'd worry about that later. For now, she had a kink in her neck, had been sleeping in her clothes, had a hand mark on her cheek, and really needed a shower and a coffee. Shepard rolled her shoulders back and stretched her head from side to side.

She glanced at her computer, debating for a moment. She had fallen asleep reading that email, and now that she was awake, it nagged at the back of her mind. She knew Kaidan had asked for time to let things settle down, but...

_Screw it_, she thought, popping open the laptop and logging in to her Alliance account. She had to write him something – just a note to say she'd gotten his letter at the very least. She knew she couldn't write too much. She wouldn't be able to encrypt this message and whatever she sent would be public record to the Alliance. She'd just write something casual – something that no one could read anything into. And yet, she realized, it needed to convey much more to Kaidan than just...casual.

So...what to say?

Shepard thought for a moment, then wrote:

_Kaidan - _

She wanted to write something like "Dear Kaidan," or even more sappy, "Dearest Kaidan," but she'd take a cue from his non-committal greeting and keep this "just friendly."

_Kaidan -  
__I believe my accounts are being watched by Cerberus._

No. No, that was already giving away way too much. Okay... Shepard pinched the bridge of her nose. This was harder than mission reports. God, she really would have made a terrible spy. She began again:

_Kaidan -  
__I know you said you wanted to let things settle down..._

No, she thought again. That's referencing the email he sent to you, the one you're trying to pretend didn't get sent. Come on, Shepard.

_Kaidan -  
__You know I'm not very good at tech or meaningful messages. I'll look you up when things settle down.  
__- Shepard_

She frowned. God, that was even more non-committal than Kaidan's mail had been. And besides, she realized, she couldn't call him "Kaidan" and sign her name as "Shepard," not on the public record. She frowned, deleted the whole message, then started again:

_Commander Alenko -  
__I'm sorry about Horizon. For what it's worth, I tried to contact you as soon as I could. That's a long story best told in person. I hope you can believe me when I say that I never meant for any of this to happen.  
__I want to write more, but I believe my accounts are being monitored. I'll contact you when things settle down. I'll try to settle them as quickly as possible.  
__Take care of yourself, Kaidan. I lo -_

She stopped, frowned, then shook her head. She wanted to tell him she loved him in person, not in some email that was certain to be intercepted by the brass.

_Take care of yourself, commander. I still have faith.  
__- K. Shepard_

Well, she thought, frowning, that...sucked. She frowned at the message, but could think of nothing better to say. Sighing, she hit the send button and...

_Unable to send message. Account holder listed as Missing in Action.  
Please contact your systems administrator for assistance._

"Oh my God," Shepard whispered, closing her eyes.

She couldn't believe it. But of course, she thought, shaking her head, the Alliance had kept her account open for archival purposes only. They wouldn't allow MIA accounts to send mail, in case some hacker or other managed to get in. Spam from dead soldiers would be quite the embarrassment to the brass, after all, and such an account could be used for all kinds of fraud. So, it was bizarre then, that her account was still _accepting_ mail. Maybe that was some sort of Alliance oversight, she thought. Or maybe that was some sneaky Cerberus work-around.

Shepard suddenly wondered about the security of the email that Kaidan had sent to her. Well, she thought grimly, if they had hacked his email already, there was nothing she could do about it now. She'd have to use her Cerberus account to send this message of hers. With a frown, she saved her brief message to her omnitool. She then opened up her Cerberus account, logged in, pasted in the message and...

_Unauthorized mail recipient.  
Message pending review by Cerberus security protocols._

"The hell?" Shepard frowned. She sat there for a moment, then shouted, "EDI!"

No reply. She sat there for a second in confusion before realizing that the removal of monitoring devices from her room would mean she'd have to contact the ship manually.

"EDI," Shepard said, hitting the comm link. "What does this mean that my email is pending review by Cerberus?"

"The Illusive Man has issued a block against any extranet addresses that may represent potential security risks," the AI replied at once. "Any messages to unauthorized recipients must be submitted to my review protocol programs for proper screening."

Shepard gaped at the empty air before her. "Since when is an Alliance account a security risk?"

"All Alliance personnel accounts have been blacklisted," EDI replied politely. "As you are the commander, I can give your emails priority and have them reviewed in .72 seconds. However, please note that all messages to Staff Commander Kaidan Alenko must be intercepted and sent to Cerberus command for further review before being delivered."

"The _hell?_" Shepard shouted. She sucked in a breath, trying to make sense of this. Was this all because of her conversation with the Illusive Man after Horizon? she thought wildly. Was he really going to track her messages with Kaidan in order to try and keep her focused on the mission?

"Why, has he done this?" Shepard asked.

"The Illusive Man does not wish anyone to compromise the confidentiality of this mission," EDI told her. "To that end, he has installed my computers with software meant to monitor all outgoing mail."

"Yeah, I knew that part," Shepard said. "But what about this blacklist stuff?"

"After you circumvented security protocols and uploaded classified Cerberus files to Alliance command, the Illusive Man had me raise the level of monitoring on your personal accounts from neutral to high, to prevent future security leaks. The addresses of Captain Anderson, Admiral Hackett, and Staff Commander Alenko were all deemed a high security risk. I have been instructed to intercept and forward all outgoing mail to those persons directly to Cerberus command for review."

Classified files? Shepard's eyes widened. Of course – the rachni.

My God, she thought. She had completely forgotten. She had been logged into some merc's account at the time, directly to the extranet, too. She had gone right by all the Illusive Man's blocks and protocols that day. The opportunity had been an accident of fate. Shepard briefly wondered if Kaidan had gotten that message before or after their meeting on Horizon.

Shepard's mouth set in a grim line. She was going to go out on a limb here and say he'd gotten the message..._after_ the meeting on Horizon. Just a guess, she thought sarcastically. But suddenly the whole picture was clearer: Kaidan must have gotten that email, wondered why she was helping the Alliance at Cerberus' expense, felt badly for his accusations and then...

And then wrote her a completely non-committal email. Shepard rolled her eyes. Well, that would be Kaidan for you. And the Illusive Prick had decided to punish her for her little stunt by upping the security watch over her. She wondered if he hadn't pulled that Horizon crap as a way of getting back at her as well.

"Where is our Illusive friend?" Shepard asked. "I want to talk to him."

"The Illusive Man is unavailable at this time," EDI replied.

"Of course he is," Shepard sighed. "Bastard. Alright, EDI, I get it. I'm in the time out chair."

Still, she thought, this just proved that she had gotten around the Illusive Man's little security protocols before. Cerberus might be monitoring her accounts and intercepting emails, but somehow, eventually, she would get a message to Kaidan.

_But Kaidan wants things to settle down, first,_ she suddenly remembered. _He needs time._

Right, she thought with a sigh. That was right. So maybe this email thing was for the best.

Shepard logged out of her account and closed the computer. She might as well just get to work. She could worry about emails later – when Kaidan wanted to read them and the Illusive Man wasn't able to stop her from sending them.

"How long until we reach Daratar, EDI?" she asked.

"About two hours, commander," Joker's voice came over the comm.

"Shit," Shepard hissed. "You've been listening in all this time, Moreau?"

"Uh, yeah," he said, as if she was silly for asking.

Shepard shook her head. "Great," she muttered.

"Hey, if it makes you feel any better, they blocked my private accounts, too," Joker said.

'Your accounts were full of..." EDI began.

"Yes, EDI," Shepard cut them both off. "We all know what Joker's accounts are full of."

"Hey!"

"Carry on, Joker," Shepard said, wearily, as she stood from her chair. "I think I need to go be invisible for a little while."

"Commander?" a new voice suddenly crackled over the comm. "If you're up, I need to talk to you." Shepard's eyes narrowed. It was Miranda.

"You monitoring my conversations over the comm as well as email, Lawson?" Shepard said, coldly.

"Ooh, shit," Joker muttered. "I'll leave you ladies to it." There was a squeak as the helmsman let go of the comm button and left the conversation.

"We're on our way to Illium, aren't we?" Miranda asked without preamble.

Shepard sucked in a breath. _Illium_. She really didn't need to think about Illium. The last time she had been to that planet had been for a brief, unexpected, and absolutely beautiful shore leave...

"We're on our way, yes," she said tersely. "I have several stops planned between here and there, though. What do you need, Lawson? Time off to go shopping?"

There was a silence on the other end. She could practically hear Miranda narrowing her eyes.

"We have a team to recruit, commander," Miranda said at last, her voice crackling testily. "Two of those people are on Illium."

"And many other assignments are between here and there. We'll get there when we get there."

Miranda was silent for a long while. "Very well, commander," she said.

"You got a problem, Lawson?" Shepard asked. "Come on out and say it."

There was a long silence. Apparently the XO heard the tension in the commander's voice and guessed, correctly, that Shepard was spoiling for a fight..

"I just..." Miranda said at last, but then she didn't go on. For the first time since Shepard had met the woman, Miranda seemed to be at a loss for words. Or maybe it was just the comm cutting out. Shepard wasn't sure. Either way, it gave her pause.

"You have people counting on you, you know," the Cerberus officer said at last.

"I know that," Shepard snapped. "All the damn colonies in the traverse."

"Actually," Miranda said, her tones clipped, "I was referring to this crew. They're...We're counting on you. And while some of your former teammates might walk away, _we're_ at your back. You're our leader. So lead, Shepard."

A dozen sharp retorts sprang to Shepard's tongue at once. She almost spat one of them out, but it wasn't quite as cutting as the next one, so she stopped, sputtering. She frowned at the comm, torn between exasperation at being second-guessed by a Cerberus flunky and the even more infuriating realization that the woman was - right.

"You done with the pep talk, Lawson?" Shepard asked at last. "The Illusive Man gave me one after Horizon and yours is only marginally better."

"I..." Miranda broke off. "Just...think about what I said, commander."

"Noted," Shepard said, wanting to end this conversation as soon as possible. "We have a few places to go before Illium. Then we'll deal with those new recruits. Anything else you need, Lawson?"

There was a long pause on the other end of the comm.

"No commander," Miranda said.

"Fine then," Shepard said, "We'll talk later." She snapped off the comm and rubbed her eyes.

Miranda was right. As much as Shepard hated to admit it, the woman was right. She needed to get moving, not mope about what had happened on Horizon or worry about her accounts behind monitored. She had gotten past the devices in her room, at least. Surely she could find a way around this email thing. She would just think of all this as a little game between the Illusive prick and herself.

Shepard sighed. She was sick of games.

* * *

Kaidan logged into his account, scarcely able to keep his eyes open. The headache was a migraine now, and it was only with this fresh dose of meds that he had been able to pull up his omnitool and attempt to read the glowing screen.

There was a new message from Dean, welcoming him back to the Citadel. There was an email from Anderson, saying that he was sorry to hear Kaidan had been hit with a migraine and that he would want to meet as soon as Kaidan was well enough to talk.

But there were no messages from Shepard.

Kaidan let his head fall back against the pillow and tried not to let that fact add to his pain. It wasn't like he had been expecting anything, he told himself.

But he was disappointed all the same.

* * *

"Commander?"

Shepard lifted her head from her arms and looked up at the Normandy's great spherical drive core.

"Yeah, Joker?" she called back.

"See, I told you she was down there," the helmsman said. His voice faded a little, as if he was talking to someone nearby.

"EDI thought you were in your quarters," Joker explained, speaking clearly once again. "Only she couldn't tell because Mordin pulled the monitoring devices from your room."

"Yeah," Shepard said, smiling a little. "He did."

"So why are you down in the engine room if your room is clean?" Joker asked.

Shepard shrugged, though she knew he couldn't see her. "I like this room. The drive core is like a biotic muffler: keeps the static from starting in my head."

"Oh...kay," Joker said slowly. "Yeah, I don't understand any of that. Hey, commander, I...we... We wanted to...ah...give you something."

"We?" Shepard asked, blinking blearily at the ceiling. "Who's we?"

"Ah...me and Chambers," he replied. "I just...that is... I thought you could use it."

"What is it?" Shepard asked, suspiciously. If Kelly had given Joker self-help literature to feed to her over the comm...

"Okay, just..." Joker faded out.

"Joker?"

"Here you go," he said.

Shepard stared up at the domed ceiling, then felt as though her chest, her heart, her entire body was lifting to the sky.

"My God," she murmured.

The room flooded with music: the beautiful, soaring, full orchestral score of one of her favorite songs from childhood. The tune was melancholy and hopeful all at once and it reached her in a way no words could have.

"Joker, where did you...? How did you?" Shepard broke off, her eyes filling with tears. This was ridiculous, she thought. She had managed not to cry so far, but she'd teared up more in the last week than in the last decade.

"I found them," he told her. "Or rather, Kelly told me about them and then I had the idea to use them."

"Them?"

"Your old playlists," he explained, "from when you were a kid, it looks like. You must have spent a long time on these lists."

"I did," Shepard murmured. Hours and hours, truthfully. She had spent almost a whole summer making playlists of her favorite songs in her cousin's hand-me-down omnitool. There were lists of all kinds of music, she remembered now, including one list that was titled, "songs that will give mom and dad a hernia."

"Miranda had all of these in a file," Joker went on. "I don't know if she ever went through all of the stuff she had on you. So anyhow...ah..."

"You and Kelly read up on my personal history?" Shepard asked, not sure quite how to take that.

"Hey," Joker said. "Chambers asked me for 'insight' into you and I told her I didn't know jack shit. She gave me access to these files and... Hell, commander, you take your sweet time when you're groundside, you know that? I was bored. Really bored, 'cause working with Kelly was... Ah, don't tell her I said that."

"My lips are sealed," Shepard laughed. Never mind that Joker had just announced this to anyone listening in on the comm.

"So anyhow," Joker said. "Kelly said you were feeling bad and asked what we could do for you and...well...It was a group effort," he mumbled at last.

Shepard could just see the chagrined look on Joker's face and she found she couldn't speak. She just listened, her heart swelling along with music.

"So I fired up the lists and EDI pulled down the songs and uploaded them to the radio in your cabin," Joker went on. "I hope you don't mind."

"Mind?" Shepard called back. "Are you kidding? Joker...I..." She couldn't think of how to put into words what she was feeling. At the very least, she felt a sudden rush of gratitude towards her helmsman – and even towards the yeoman.

Even towards EDI, Shepard thought. She didn't trust the AI, but this reminded her that the thing was a program. It couldn't stop doing what the Illusive Man commanded it to. And as for Joker and Kelly, well, Shepard simply could not convey how much this meant to her. She still didn't want to talk about Kaidan – or anything else, come to that – with Yeoman Chambers, but Shepard suddenly felt she owed the woman an apology.

_We're counting on you,_ Miranda had said. _And while some of your former teammates might walk away, we're at your back. You're our leader. So lead, Shepard_.

"Thank you, Joker," Shepard said softly. "Thank Kelly, too."

"Yeah, well, it still should have been Alenko," Joker muttered.

"What was that?"

"Nothing," he said. "Look, I...this...song...isn't really my thing, so can I...ah...?"

"Sure," she said, laughing, "Turn it off. I'll listen to it in my quarters while I get ready for the next assignment."

"I didn't know you had such bad taste commander in music, commander," Joker said, clearly being sarcastic now. "I mean, Colony Western? Old Earth Country? Really?"

"Hey," she snapped, sounding a little like a Valkyrie again. "I was born on a farm, Joker. Remember that. Besides, don't knock it till you've tried it."

"Whatever," he laughed.

"Thanks, Joker," Shepard said, wishing she could say it to his face, and yet, feeling strangely glad she didn't have to let anyone see how much this had affected her. She suspected Joker probably felt more comfortable giving this to her via the comm link as well. "Just...thanks."

"Okay, now _that_ one is just..." Joker laughed. "Sapphire Stars? You actually _like_ that asari girl-power band?"

_Great_, she thought, Joker would now tease her about this for eternity.

"Shut up, Moreau," she said, unable to keep the smile out of her voice. "It's good to dance to." Not that she danced very well, but still. "Just send it to my radio and you can go back to listening to whatever crap it is that you like."

"Thanks a lot," he said.

She chuckled. "No, thank _you_." Then she sighed in relief. "Really, I mean it Joker. And Kelly and...and EDI. Thank you."

* * *

Shepard stood, now smiling. She walked towards the elevator, fully intending to go upstairs, turn on some music, feed her fish, then get suited up for the coming assignment. She hadn't gotten any further than the first door past engineering, however, when a voice shouted up up at her, seemingly from beneath her feet.

"Hey, bald bitch!"

Shepard froze, bit back a retort, and marched down the stairs. As she approached the woman waiting in the shadows, she allowed a bright, roiling ball of biotic energy to form in her upturned palm. The warp missile crackled blue against the red light of the hold.

"You may not be military," Shepard told Jack, cooly, calmly, "but this is _my_ ship."

"You really want to do that, Shepard?" Jack asked, her eyes flashing.

"No," Shepard told her. "I don't, really. I just want to get it through that equally bald head of yours that if you mess with me, I will set you down like I would any other member of my crew. However," she added at the sudden tensing of Jack's tattooed shoulders, "Show some respect and you'll get some. Now what do you want?" She let the glowing ball of light dim and raised a blonde eyebrow.

Jack considered her for a long moment. "You've got quite the tight little group here," she said. "They're pretty devoted to you." Shepard's eyebrow just raised higher.

"You figured that out from sitting here in the dark, I gather."

"I pick up on a lot," Jack said, cocking her head. "Like how they all would follow you anywhere, and not just the ones who you knew before."

Shepard folded her arms over her chest. Now _that_ was unexpected. Miranda's words came back to her again: _We're counting on you. _It seemed that the crew really did trust her more than she had thought. And in return, Shepard was coming to trust them, too.

"What's your point, Jack?" Shepard asked, now curious.

"Look, bitch..." Jack said, then broke off at Shepard's raised eyebrows and grim mouth. "Look, Shepard," she amended. "It's clear that they'd do anything you wanted. And you have a pretty nice ship. You'd be rich if you took to piracy."

Shepard's expression grew even more icy. "Piracy?" she murmured.

"Yeah, but you wouldn't," Jack said with a slight sneer.

"I'm from Mindoir, Jack," Shepard said blandly. "My whole fucking life was ripped away by pirates. What do you want, or were you just getting bored down here with these data pads?" Shepard waved a hand at the mess littering the floor.

"Mindoir, huh?" Jack said. She looked Shepard over, then lifted her chin. "Still, I bet you had a mommy and a daddy tuckin' you in at night, huh?"

"Get to the point, Jack," Shepard said, eyes narrowing.

"I can't figure you, Shepard," Jack said, she looked out into the hold as if the answer were there, then shook her head. "Doesn't matter. I need to talk to you about somethin'."

"Alright," Shepard said, sighing wearily. "What's up?"

"I have...thoughts," Jack said, "Like little bugs crawling in and out of my head."

Shepard frowned at the metaphor, and also at the way the woman suddenly seemed to twitch as she sat down on the stairs.

"I have a history with Cerberus," Jack said.

"I figured as much," Shepard said, warily. She felt a little like kicking herself. She hadn't exactly...forgotten about Jack, down here in the hold, she told herself, she hadn't. She just...

_What, Shepard?_ She thought to herself. _You haven't stopped to talk to anyone on your crew. They need you and you've been ignoring them, all because you've been moping over Kaidan._

God, she had. She actually had. And all the while they'd been needing her – even reaching out to her. It was embarrassing – and unacceptable.

Shepard straightened as she set the thought of Kaidan aside and focused in on the angry woman before her.

"I'll listen to anything you have to say, Jack," Shepard said.

* * *

_Need to have something other than Flux music playing in the captain's cabin, don't ya think? An ongoing Kyrie/Kaidan playlist is on my ff profile._


	43. Messed Up and Starving

_Chapter 43_

_(messed up and starving)_

_

* * *

_

_Pop. Snick. Pop. Snick._

_Pop._

_Snick._

Shepard sat staring at her arms, folded across her chest. Jack sat across from her, her thumb flicking open and shut the top of some sort of lighter. Shepard had never seen the woman smoke. It was probably just something that she kept on her person for kicks and mayhem – like that knife Shepard was sure Jack had concealed in her right boot.

_Pop. Snick. Pop._

_Snick._

Shepard scowled, remembering back to the mess they'd just left behind.

"_This is where they brought in the new kids," Jack said. "They came in those containers. They were messed up and starving, but alive."_

"_This is...unbelievable," Garrus said in awe._

It was. It had been.

Unbelievable.

Shepard gritted her teeth. She always knew that for a biotic, she'd had it pretty damn good, but today had just nailed that point home for her once again. She hadn't gotten ID-ed until she was old enough to handle the shock of being different – for the most part. At the time she'd been too busy coping with the fallout from Mindoir to worry much about the biotics. In truth, the biotics had been her saving grace. She took to expressing herself through her new-found powers as another child might do with an instrument. When she felt angry, she practiced throwing things. When she felt sorrow, she tried to lift things. It was hard to feel helpless when you focused on making things fly.

The foster parents were former Alliance, so they had no problem with the powers. They were more concerned with her attitude, her refusal to talk or open up. Shepard was still amazed that she hadn't completely cracked back then, filled with rage and sorrow as she was. She supposed the love and strict upbringing that she had known on Mindoir were to thank for that. The conscience her mother and father had instilled in her kept whispering to her that she needed to use these growing powers to make things right.

After all, the shrinks didn't help. Of course, that might have been because she skipped therapy sessions constantly. Instead of walking from school to counseling, as she was supposed to, she would go out to an abandoned lot near the football fields and practice. Talking about Mindoir didn't help; thinking about the blood and the fury and all five minutes she actually remembered of the attack didn't help. Getting a nosebleed while hurling rocks at old beer bottles: that helped. Fracturing her arm while pulling the fender off of an old, broken-down car: that helped. She wasn't a junkie for pain, exactly, but something about forcing herself through the side effects of the energy made her feel stronger.

At eighteen, she enlisted, grateful to get away from the foster parents' hovering. She was sent to biotic training, but she'd already gathered so much power that the instructors almost didn't know what to do with her. While the other biotics tried to make objects float, she was struggling not to destroy the room. She slowly had to teach herself control. She'd sometimes lie awake for hours, keeping the nightmares of batarians at bay by making her dog tags hover in space just above her bed. It freaked out her roommates, to say the least, when they caught her at it.

But even as Shepard spent most of her training apart from the other biotics, she heard rumors of what happened to the others. All the biotics in the Alliance had a story: the day they'd been fighting on the playground and then found they'd nearly killed the other kid. The day they'd suddenly found themselves on the far end of the room with no memory of how they'd gotten there. And everyone had a story of what kind of training they had gotten - if any.

Kaidan had a story like that. He once said his parents never knew how bad he had it. He had been a first-gen case: one of the very earliest kids pulled into an Alliance-backed program. Only the Alliance hadn't overseen the program as closely as it should have. And Kaidan had been one of the lucky ones.

But the worst stories were ones that no one knew the details about. The men and women who made it into the Alliance were mostly stable and sane. The stories about what happened to the kids who got sold into slavery, sold into labs and such – those ones were only whispers. Every biotic in the Alliance always wondered, "What if?" Because, of course, no matter how bad it had been to learn you had biotic powers, at least if you were enlisted, you had gotten past the dangerous part. Now you could fight, now you could serve, now you could have some kind of dignity. At least you worked for an organization that valued your skills and you got fed enough to keep your strength up. But the kids who ended up in the labs – those children were like phantoms that no one wanted to think about.

And Jack had been like that. The abandoned Teltin Facility was housed a building that the jungle was trying to reclaim. But even the vegetation growing in at every corner could not hide the history that had been left behind. It had taken all of five seconds in that place for Shepard to feel how very wrong it was. Garrus felt it, too, and as for Jack – Shepard's eyes flicked to the woman sitting across from her.

She didn't know what to say to Jack. In truth, she felt the best thing to do was what Jack wanted: explore the place, face the past – and then plant a bomb in it and blow it all to hell.

Only what they'd found down there was not exactly what Jack had expected.

"_The Illusive Man requested operation logs again. He's getting suspicious. But when we deliver results, he won't care what we did."_

"_Sounds like this facility went rogue," Garrus observed as Shepard shut down the holographic log._

"_He didn't say what they hid," Jack snapped._

"_I don't see the Illusive Man missing much," Shepard said, frowning. "He must have guessed, at least."_

"_Exactly," Jack said, nodding firmly._

"_You never know," Garrus said. "He follows you pretty close, Shepard, but who knows how closely he watches his other projects?"_

"_Bullshit," Jack said. "How could he not have known about this? About me?"_

"_I don't like it, either way," Shepard murmured. "Why was that computer turned on, anyway?"_

The facility had just gone on and on, a maze of buildings and bloodstains. Jack muttered here and there about the places she remembered: the docking bay where the kids had been brought in, an arena where she had been forced to kill other children with her biotics, the first place she had ever seen sunlight, and then, they found the rooms she did not remember:

"_Why is there a morgue?" Jack asked. "This was a small facility."_

"_I'm saying, some sick son of a bitch killed a lot of kids," Garrus said. "And then he checked his work."_

"_Bullshit," Jack said. "I had the worst of it, and I made it out alive."_

At the end of it all, they found the truth: Jack had been the reason for the whole facility. The entire point behind killing so many children was to study the results and make, Jack, Subject Zero, into a super biotic. Countless biotic children had died to grow her powers – children stolen by slavers, children sold by their parents. Shepard could feel bile rising in her throat as she had stood there, listening to the logs. She wondered if she had known any of those lost children – if any of them had been from Mindoir. There had been two boys from her school, brothers, who had just started to show biotic tendencies at the time of the attack. They would have gotten a good price, she realized.

_Pop. Snick. Pop. _

_Snick._

And then, in Jack's cell, they found a man. He had grown up here, a lab-rat for Jack's sake. He had been drawn back to Teltin for the same reason that they were: to see what it was that Cerberus had wanted from this carnage. Only his search had driven him insane. The situation had been resolved much better than Shepard had hoped, given Jack's instability. But as Jack had walked around her room, looking at all the broken pieces of her childhood, Shepard could only listen and frown. There was nothing you could do about things like this, Shepard realized, even as it cut her to the heart. Sometimes, she thought, things just happened and they were ugly. And what the hell could you do about it?

_Pop_.

Jack raised her eyes and met Shepard's. She had such sad eyes, Shepard thought. For everything that there was about her that was tough and hard and violent, there was a pleading in Jack's eyes that she had never managed to hide. And yet, for all that, Jack was a fighter. Shepard didn't agree with it entirely, but she respected that Jack had never quite allowed herself to be broken. She supposed she saw more than a little of herself in Jack - and of what she might have been.

Shepard's lips set in a line and she nodded at Jack. She banged on the door behind her and in response to that cue, the pilot set off the bomb they'd left behind. The small shuttle pitched for a moment as the blast echoed behind them. Jack looked around wildly, then settled herself against her seat. Her shoulders relaxed a fraction as her childhood cell was blown away.

* * *

"Commander," Councilor Anderson stood and waved Kaidan into the spacious office. Kaidan entered slowly, and not only because of the bright lights. Even now, his headache pained him, but it was the three other people in the room who made him cautious. One was in an admiral's uniform, one was in plain clothes, and one was Ambassador Udina. Kaidan kept his face neutral, much as he wanted to frown. He had thought this would be a private meeting.

"Commander." The nondescript man in plain clothes stood. "Good to finally meet you."

Kaidan started as he recognized the man's voice at once. "Admiral Hackett," he managed, shaking the man's hand. Even as Kaidan looked into the officer's face, he found it completely forgettable.

"The Admiral came up here on short notice," Anderson said. "You've met Rear Admiral Mikhailovich, I believe."

Kaidan tried to place the man.

"Your Commander Shepard once gave me a tour of the old Normandy," the man said. "Tragic waste that."

"Yes sir," Kaidan murmured, shaking his hand as well. It felt strange to think of the Normandy attack now. His mind still registered it as a horrible tragedy that he didn't want to talk about, even as another part of his mind knew that Shepard had lived and what had actually happened to her was another kind of tragedy altogether.

Kaidan shook Udina's hand to be polite, then sat down at the chair clearly left for him. They sat in a circle, but it felt like he was facing an interrogation. Immediately, Kaidan began to sort out his thoughts, preparing them like armor to be placed on. He couldn't let them know about the email he'd sent to Shepard, couldn't let them know about the rachni data he'd received. He couldn't let them know about his relationship with Shepard and above all, he had to keep himself from acting any more distraught than any other soldier would be to find out about the seeming betrayal of a respected superior officer.

The tricky part, Kaidan thought, would be getting any decent answers out of these men while protecting all those secrets.

"You saw Shepard on Horizon," Udina began at once. It was a statement, not a question.

"Yes," Kaidan replied. The four men all looked at him to elaborate, but he did not.

"Well?" Udina asked, impatiently. "Go on."

"Sir?" Kaidan asked politely.

"What was she doing? What mess was she causing this time?"

"Udina," Anderson said, wearily, "I have allowed you to be a part of this meeting. Don't make me regret that." He turned his gaze to Kaidan. "Your report said you met Shepard and she was working for Cerberus."

"With Cerberus, yes," Kaidan corrected. His words surprised him. He hardly knew why he had said that. Mikhailovich just laughed.

"Is there a difference?"

Kaidan said nothing. Anderson looked at him pointedly.

"Well, commander – is there a difference?"

"I'm not...certain," Kaidan said, slowly. "She's trying to stop the Collector attacks."

"Collectors?" Mikhailovich blinked. "Aren't they some kind of...well, myth?"

"No myth," Hackett said, shaking his head. "Unfortunately not."

"Tell us what happened," Anderson said.

Kaidan did so as briefly and clearly as he could. He recounted the seeker swarm attack, then the arrival of the Collectors how they had taken half the colony. He showed them the video he had of the plaza attack. Mikhailovich frowned at it and muttered something about idiotic colonials. Hackett just shook his head. Anderson barely moved a muscle.

"Then Shepard got the GARDIAN systems back online and shot their ship," Kaidan finished. "They retreated and she left."

"And just how did she happen to get there in the nick of time?" Udina asked, suspiciously.

"I don't know," Kaidan replied. He still didn't know that. He wished he had thought to ask her at the time. As that thought passed through his mind, he remembered their meeting and the ensuing argument - all of the angry things he had said and Shepard's incomprehensible replies. And then, of course, his mind trailed back to that one, small, baffling kiss...

"Commander?" Hackett prompted. Kaidan looked up to find he'd fallen silent.

"Sir?"

"I asked, are you sure it was her?"

"My suit's sensors..." Kaidan began. He waved at his arm. "I didn't have it recording, but it was her, certainly."

Mikhailovich snorted. "Or a convincing clone."

"Not on our suits," Anderson said. "But even so, do you think it was her, Commander? You worked with her for a long time."

Anderson and the other men all turned their eyes to him. Kaidan nodded at once and said, "Absolutely sir. I don't doubt it."

Anderson nodded grimly.

"Nor did I," he agreed. Kaidan looked at him in surprise, then had to fight back a sudden rush of fury.

That's right, he thought. Anderson had known that Shepard was alive. He had known and not told him.

"How long did you know, sir?" Kaidan managed at last.

Anderson said simply, "Not for very long. And not for certain until recently."

"Since when?"

"Since shortly after you left for Horizon," Anderson replied.

Kaidan nearly choked on the news. Only the fact that two admirals and an ambassador were sitting in front of him stopped Kaidan from shouting something inappropriate at the councilor right then and there.

"So Shepard is working for Cerberus?" Mikhailovich said. "Why?

All eyes turned to Kaidan. He swallowed, then said, "She said she was working with them to stop the Collector attacks."

"But why?" Mikhailovich asked again. "Why them?" He folded his arms across his chest and he looked very displeased.

"Maybe because the Council and the Alliance aren't doing a damn thing about these attacks," Anderson suggested, frowning.

Kaidan watched Anderson closely. Anderson had sent Kaidan to set up defense systems on distant colonies on over ten different worlds. The councilor had given Kaidan this project in order to protect human settlements and to investigate the source of the colony attacks. For a while there, Kaidan had begun to wonder Anderson didn't want to do any more for those colonies, but maybe his hands had simply been tied all this time by the politicians and the brass.

"I'm not sure why Shep – she – joined Cerberus," Kaidan said at last. He thought briefly of what Shepard had said – something about being in a coma, being rebuilt. But he didn't say that. He didn't know what that meant, so he felt it was best not to bring it up.

"So she just disappeared and joined terrorists for the fun of it?" Mikhailovich asked. "Or maybe the pay?"

"I told you she was unstable," Udina muttered.

"You didn't ask her why she was with them?" Hackett asked just as Anderson warned, "Udina..."

"I..." Kaidan didn't know what to say to them – to any of them. The entire story was all jumbled in his mind. "I was too shocked to find out why she was with them," he finally said. That was true, at least. "I asked if she was with Cerberus... She didn't deny it. There was a ship..."

"A ship?" Mikhailovich asked. "What ship?"

"A copy of the Normandy," Anderson spoke for Kaidan. "The record is on file with Citadel Control."

Kaidan felt as if he had been punched in the gut.

"She came _here_?" he practically shouted. All four men looked to him. He fought to get his voice back under control. "When?" he rasped out.

"The day you left for Horizon," Anderson said. "That was the first time I knew for certain that she was really alive - when I saw her in person."

"You saw her...?" Kaidan murmured. He couldn't believe this. The day he'd left... He could scarcely process it.

The day he'd _left_...

He'd missed her by what? Minutes? Hours? The day he'd left for Horizon, she'd come here. He had been mourning her and she'd been on her way...to him? To Anderson? Who had she come to see, and what? And why after so long? And for him to have just...missed her...

Suddenly, a horrible thought occurred to Kaidan: this wasn't the first time he had missed her. She had been alive, hadn't she? That meant that somehow, she had survived that fall to Alchera. How long had she suffered, Kaidan suddenly wondered. Had she laid there on the frozen surface of that planet, unconscious until Cerberus found her? Or had she been awake, possibly trapped or wounded beyond imagining, wondering why no one had come for her – why Kaidan had never come for her?

Did she think he'd abandoned her?

Kaidan's stomach knotted just thinking of it. Had she joined Cerberus because they were the onces to rescue and revive her? Did she feel she owed them? Did she blame him for leaving her behind when he might have saved her? And might he not have stopped all this, years ago, if he had simply had the courage to go with Liara and make certain that they recovered Shepard's corpse?

Had she joined Cerberus because she had felt betrayed? Kaidan couldn't think. He had missed her...by so little time...

"It is troubling," Hackett was saying, his heavy, ponderous voice so strangely at odds with his nondescript features. "Cerberus is a powerful organization. For them to have turned our best operative against us..."

"She's not against us," Kaidan said as Anderson shook his head and said, "She's still a Spectre."

"She is?" Kaidan blinked.

Anderson nodded. "She got re-instated when she came here and spoke to the Council. Came to explain that she'd joined them to stop the Collector attacks."

"It was a mess of a meeting," Udina grumbled.

Kaidan grew furious. "You knew that?" he asked hotly. "If you knew, then why did you ask me about it?"

"I wanted to see if she said the same things to you that she did to the Council." Anderson gave Kaidan an searching look. "I wanted to see if she really is just with them to stop the Collectors as she said, or if there is more to it."

Kaidan ground his teeth together. Anderson had known Shepard was alive, was with Cerberus, was trying to stop the Collectors and the man hadn't told Kaidan. It was infuriating, except... Well, Kaidan realized, he had been unavailable. And it was unlikely Anderson would have told him anyhow. None of these men knew what Kaidan was to Shepard – what he had been to Shepard, he corrected himself. There was no reason for them to send information about Shepard to Kaidan. To the brass, Kaidan was there to feed information about Shepard to _them_. To the Alliance, he was just Shepard's former lieutenant. He'd best keep it that way.

"I'm sorry, sir," Kaidan said quickly. "It was just...troubling to see my former...commander with terrorists. I didn't think to find out more information from her, and for that, I'm sorry."

"You did well, commander," Hackett said, giving him a curt nod. "Your guns stopped the attack and now we have more information than we did before."

"Including the information that Shepard is still with Cerberus," Udina said. "The longer that goes on, the more political trouble will come of it."

Mikhailovich snorted. "They're human, at least. Better than turians or whatnot."

"It's because they're humans that they're so much trouble," Anderson said, sternly. "They've caused us all sorts of problems."

"And now Shepard is working for them." Hackett added.

_With them,_ Kaidan wanted to say. He didn't know why he was clinging to those words of Shepard's, but he was.

Anderson met Kaidan's eyes. "This last mission must not have been easy for you, commander. I found it hard to find Shepard alive and so changed, myself. But," he added, rising, "With any luck, her time with Cerberus will be short lived."

"Sir?" Kaidan blinked as the other men stood as well.

"We have your evidence on the Horizon mission and will review it," Anderson continued. "I may need you for further information, so please check your mail regularly. For the next two weeks, however, consider yourself off duty. Dismissed, commander."

"Off duty?"

"Surely you need a break after all that, soldier," Hackett said, kindly.

"Sir...Councilor..." Kaidan began, torn between confusion and frustration and something that felt like...betrayal all over again. "Aren't you going to do something about the Collector attacks?"

"If we do," Mikhailovich said, unfolding his arms, "That will be classified."

"You can't act without the approval of the Council," Udina scowled. "Especially not based off of information from an unstable Spectre who has joined terrorists."

Kaidan bit the inside of his lip to keep from replying to the man.

"Your evidence is most helpful," Hackett told Kaidan. Turning to Anderson, the admiral added, "Based on this, we should at least increase patrols to secure the traverse."

"We're already spread too thin," Mikhailovich scowled. "If you would just listen to me and build up our numbers rather than throw away money on experimental technology..."

"Gentlemen," Anderson said, his firm voice stopping them both. He looked at Kaidan, who had still not moved.

"Dismissed, Commander," he said. His tone was quiet, but it held a warning.

"Councilor," Kaidan said. "Admiral. Admiral. Ambassador."

With a nod and a three salutes, Kaidan left the office, full of more questions now than when he had begun.

* * *

"You okay, Shepard?"

Shepard sighed and stretched her shoulders, then cast a glance at Garrus. The turian looked more serious than usual, and with his scarred face, he often looked serious these days.

"Yeah," she said. "Not sure about..." She nodded to the retreating figure of Jack. The tattooed woman was walking away from the shuttle, no doubt to return to her place in the Normandy's hold.

"Yeah," Garrus muttered. "I can't even..."

"Agreed."

"You think she's going to be okay?"

"I...don't know," Shepard said. "I'll let her settle in, check on her later, but..." She sighed. "I don't know how anyone heals wounds that go so deep. I don't know how you help. I guess Jack just...put tattoos over the cuts and acts tough. She's not a victim though, I'll give her that."

"She became a murderer," Garrus said, his eyes troubled.

"I'm not sure how much of that is her fault...or Cerberus's," Shepard said, scowling. "What would you do in her same shoes?"

"Her shoes?" Garrus looked down at his feet.

"It's a human expression," Shepard said, smiling just a little. "It means, 'what would you do if you were her'?"

"I don't know," Garrus answered honestly. "Hard to imagine."

"Yeah." Shepard stopped and thought for a moment. "Do turians do that kind of thing to kids? Turian kids, I mean."

Garrus' mandibles drooped into a frown. "Turian parents are probably harder on their children than humans are – push them more. But not...Well," he shrugged. "there are sick bastards in any culture."

"True enough," Shepard agreed. "Speaking of which, I need to talk to the Illusive Man about this. I still think he knew..."

"Commander," Miranda's voice came over the comm. "If you're back, I need to speak with you."

"Would this be about Jack's blown up cell?" Shepard asked, raising an eyebrow at the ceiling.

There was a pause.

"What's this about Jack?"

Shepard explained where they had been as Garrus folded his arms across his chest and also glared up at the ceiling. There was a longer pause, then:

"They went rogue. They must have."

"Right," Shepard said, trying to hold back her fury. "With the Illusive Man's intelligence network, he had no idea what they were doing."

"Exactly," came the reply.

"Bullshit," Shepard snapped. "What was that about "Lead us, Shepard?" I tell you what, Lawson, I'm doing my damnedest to lead you, but if your boss messed with Jack that badly, how the hell do you expect this team...?" She trailed off, reining her anger back to become a cold, determined wariness inside of her.

"I keep forgetting myself with you Cerberus folks," she muttered.

And that was the trouble, Shepard thought. One moment she found herself settling in with the crew, with the team, enjoying her regular meals and coffee and the comfort of this beautiful ship. The whole situation slowly lulled her into thinking she was working with just any other crew, any other organization. And then, something like this would remind her that the devil always sweetened his poison.

Jack's life had been ripped away by Cerberus – and Subject Zero had been possibly the luckiest child in that hell. Cerberus could not be trusted, Shepard told herself once again. She could never forget that.

More loudly, she said,"You've asked me to lead this crew, and I will, Lawson. But I am not forgetting what I saw today. I don't care how far down the chain of command that was. That was Cerberus – and you never owned up to it."

With a nod to Garrus, she headed towards the elevator. The turian fell into step behind her.

"The Alliance makes mistakes as well," Miranda's voice called after her as Shepard stalked across the deck.

"Not like that," Shepard shouted back.

Her thoughts strayed to something Kaidan had once told her about his biotic training:_ The Alliance...made mistakes_.

But even so, it hadn't been like that, Shepard told herself. Never like that.


	44. Uncomfortable

_Chapter 44_

_(uncomfortable)_

_Author's Note: This chapter was inspired in part by Harlequin in Chain's _Unlikely_ and by SiaLater's _Loved_. But, obviously, this being Shenko, the moment went in a different direction..._

_

* * *

_

Shepard walked out of the elevator, holding her hand over her throat. She came around the corner, headed for the medical bay, when she saw Chakwas sitting at the table in the mess. The doctor was drinking a tea and looking at a data pad. Shepard strode right up to her, causing the silver-haired woman to look up in surprise.

"Chakwas," Shepard said, letting her hand drop, "do you have any...?"

"What _happened_ to you?" Garrus exclaimed. He stood from his seat at the next table over, his eyes widening as he pointed at Shepard's neck.

"How bad is it?" Shepard asked, looking down. She couldn't see what he was pointing to, but she could sure as hell feel it.

"You're black and blue," Chakwas gasped, standing at once. "What...?"

"Krogan," Shepard told her.

"You woke it _up_?" Garrus frowned, stalking over to her. "What, Jack wasn't enough, and now we need a tank-bred krogan running around, too?"

"It's okay," Shepard said, tipping her chin up as Chakwas readied her omnitool with medigel and began to apply it to Shepard's neck and jaw. "He rammed me into the wall and we had a little chat. He's agreed to join us."

"Just like that?" Garrus asked, her voice sounding slightly tremulous in spite of the calm way he folded his arms across his chest. "A krogan slammed you into a wall hard enough to bruise your throat and you 'had a little chat' about it?"

"After Wrex, this guy was nothing," Shepard replied with a one-shouldered shrug. "He's just a baby."

"And that 'baby' did _that_ to you," Garrus snapped, pointing.

"I had my pistol stuck into his his ribs," Shepard told him. "If he'd tried anything else, he would have gotten a bullet in one of his hearts."

Garrus raised his plated chin a little, considering that. "So you weren't completely reckless."

"No," she answered cheekily, "I leave that for my turian friend, the ex-cop-turned-vigilante."

Garrus appeared almost to smile.

"It was a gamble, I know," she said, turning her head to the side so that Chakwas could see a little more clearly. "It paid off. Actually, I think Grunt likes me."

"Grunt?"

"He named himself," Shepard replied. "It fits, I think."

"And you took this risk...why?"

"Fish not enough responsibility for you, commander?" Chakwas asked, quietly, her lips twitching into a smile.

"Very funny," Shepard said. "Look, Joker said the same. But after flying around for a week with that krogan down there in a tank, I realized I'd rather have him out where we can talk to him than down there where he can become a problem. Besides," she added. "The Illusive Man thought it was risky. He just wants the krogan's body."

He had, too. The krogan, it seemed, was up to its bright blue eyeballs in Collector tech and possibly DNA, too. The Illusive Man wanted the alien's body spared, and to that end, preferred it in stasis. Shepard, however, hated cages of any kind. She only felt badly that she'd spent so long deciding what to do about the krogan.

"Thank goodness for that bone weave," Chakwas told her, finishing her treatment. "He might have done more than bruise you."

"I'm not delicate to begin with," Shepard replied, "but yeah."

"It still was stupid, Shepard," Garrus frowned. "You should have brought me with you."

"I came by," Shepard told him. Chakwas stepped back, now done with the medigel. "You said you were in the middle of some calibrations."

Garrus stopped short at that. "I didn't...I mean... Why didn't you say something about what you were going to do?"

She shrugged. "You've been distracted," she replied. "I didn't want to bother you."

"If you'll excuse me, commander," Chakwas said, politely stepping out of the conversation. Garrus barely seemed to notice the woman walk away. Instead, he muttered something that Shepard didn't quite hear.

"What was that?" she asked, raising an eyebrow.

Garrus considered her for a moment, then said, "I don't remember you being this careless before, Shepard."

"Before?" she asked. "What, you mean before I died?"

"Yes," he said, his eyes narrowing.

"Garrus," Shepard said, "I took risks all the time back then."

"Yes but not..." Garrus nodded to the battery and Shepard followed him out of earshot of the crew who had begun to listen in eagerly around the mess table.

"These Cerberus...people," Garrus said, nodding his head back at the men and women behind them, "They..." He broke off, not sure how to proceed.

"What is it, Garrus?" Shepard asked.

"I've got your six, Shepard," he said quietly. "You know that."

Shepard frowned at the seriousness of his voice. "I know, Garrus. That's why I've brought you on every single mission so far."

"Except to get Mordin."

"Well, yes, turian-killing plagues aside..."

"Yes, but..." The turian scowled. Shepard wasn't sure how exactly he did it given his bony face, but it was definitely a scowl.

"What is it, Garrus?"

"We don't have enough allies for you to go adding more...unknowns to the mix."

"We don't really have any allies, Garrus," Shepard said, frowning. "So far, the numbers are you, me, Tali, Joker, and Chakwas."

"Though Joker and Chakwas can't fight."

"True," she nodded. "Yeah, we are a little short on soldiers at the moment. But maybe..." She sighed. "I just keep hoping if I move forward, this will all work itself out. I guess there's nothing else to do."

Garrus looked at her for a long moment, the turned around with a sharp jerk and slammed his hands on the railing before him. "Damn it!" he snapped, mandibles flaring. "He shouldn't have walked away like that."

Shepard blinked at his outburst. "He? He who?"

"Never mind."

Suddenly, Shepard understood who Garrus was talking about. She'd wondered when this would come up – if it came up at all. She swallowed before asking:

"Kaidan, right?" Her voice was little more than a whisper.

"We needed him," Garrus snapped, turning to her. "I came with you. Tali came with you. Joker and Chakwas... But he..."

"He was an ass," Shepard agreed. Garrus looked oddly pleased to hear her say that. She chuckled a little and then sighed. "But I wasn't much better," she admitted. "I said some really stupid things. And he was coming from a rough spot." She thought back again to his email. "Truly, I don't know what I would have done in his place."

"You're going to _defend_ him?" Garrus glared at her.

"I see his point," Shepard said wearily. "It pisses me off, but I see it."

"_I'm_ here with you," Garrus said. "And he's not. What does that tell you about who you can trust?"

"Garrus, I pulled your ass out of the line of fire," Shepard said, growing suddenly angry.

"You pulled _his _ass out of the line of fire, too," Garrus pointed out.

Shepard came up short at that. "Okay..." she said. "True, but you heard the rumors on Omega. You saw me coming all down that bridge and you had time to adjust to the fact I was back. We fought together - you know that helped convince you that it was me. But Kaidan had years of mourning followed by months of rumors that I was alive and with the enemy and then – suddenly – he finds the rumors are all true. It's not the same."

"It is exactly the same!"

"No, it's not, Garrus."

"You think I didn't mourn you too, Shepard?" Garrus cried. "I _did."_

Shepard blinked at the turian's anger. Garrus scowled. "We all did," he added. He quickly turned away.

"Garrus?" she murmured when he said nothing.

"You could hear a...a what do you say? A needle drop, in those escape pods," he told her, still not looking at her. "When that ship exploded and Joker came over the comm to say you didn't make it... It was like a star had died..." he trailed off.

Shepard swallowed at the idea of it: of everyone hurting, everyone aching – because of her.

"I'm...sorry," she said at last. "I didn't..."

"Of course you didn't, damn it!" Garrus snapped, glaring at her over his shoulder. "You went to save Joker. That bastard was lucky he was in a separate pod. If he'd been anywhere near me..." He took a breath. "You _died_, Shepard. No one blamed you."

"But you did, didn't you?" she said, her voice full of wonder as realization sunk in. "In a way, you all did."

Garrus looked at her for a moment, then shook his head and spun on his heel to pace away from her.

"Damn it, Shepard," he growled. "If you'd only taken care of yourself! You were always putting yourself in danger for everyone..."

"I did, Garrus," she said, her voice growing warm with conviction. "I still am. That's what I do. That's what I've always done."

"And that..." Garrus pointed at her neck. "Is that supposed to prove something?"

"I don't have to prove anything, Garrus. I just need to keep moving. I need to stop the Collectors, to stop the Reapers..."

"To save every damn person in the galaxy..."

"You're one to talk," Shepard said, eyes narrowing. "Your work on Omega – hell, you jumped out in front of a gun ship..."

"I'm expendable, Shepard," Garrus said, stepping in close to loom over her. "You're not."

"No one is expendable," Shepard told him, poking her finger against the armor on his chest. "Not you, not anyone."

"That's a naive view, Shepard," he said, looking down at her.

"Yeah," she said, craning her neck to look up at him, "Well, an idealist once told me that when you do things the easy way, mistakes happen. And in his experience, when you let things slide, they pick up speed. I believed him then and I still believe him now."

Garrus stiffened and stepped away from her pointed finger. "You're talking about Kaidan," he said, quietly.

Shepard folded her arms across her chest. "He was right, Garrus. If I have to put myself in a dangerous place to be the barrier between innocents and gunfire, I'll do it. I'm not going to let some war hero status stop me from doing what's right. If I do that, I don't deserve the title."

"You know what, Shepard?" Garrus practically shouted, "Kaidan didn't say a _word _after you died. Not one damn word!" Shepard stared in surprise at the turian's outburst. Garrus glared at her, then sucked in a breath, fixing his steely-blue eyes on her face.

"I've never seen anyone so cold," he went on. "It was like... It was like he'd turned into a machine. He got everyone taken care of, got us all back to the Citadel. Then he went right back to work for the Alliance, like it had never happened - like you never existed."

"That was probably his way of coping," Shepard murmured, stunned.

"Did you know," Garrus added disgustedly, "that he didn't even show up for your damn funeral."

"There was a funeral?" Shepard suddenly felt like her throat was seizing up.

"You're a war hero!" Garrus said. "Of course there was a funeral."

"Of course," she murmured. Of course, there would have been, but...

"We had a service in the Presidium," Garrus went on, "The Kyoto plaza in the hotel district..."

_Oh, my God. _Shepard felt tears forming behind that lump in her throat and willed them away.

"Not the one next to the Japanese garden?" she asked, softly.

"You know it?"

"Yeah," Shepard said, taking a shaky breath. "I know it. They had my service in the _garden_?"

"In the plaza. And Alenko didn't even show up. I heard he was supposed to come, but he didn't. The whole damn Citadel showed up, except for him."

_Kaidan_.

She thought of the time they had been there together: of their starlit walk and what they had shared among those quiet trees. What that must have done to Kaidan, to have such a reminder close by while they buried her... or, more likely, while politicians said speeches over an empty coffin... The very though brought tears to her eyes.

Damn. And she'd promised herself no more crying.

"Shepard," Garrus was saying. "Did you hear me? He didn't even show up."

"I heard you, Garrus." Shepard sighed, blinking away the tears. "And I'm sorry. Really, I am. And I'm sorry for what you went through. If I could take it back, I would. I'd go back two years and I would be more prepared or... I didn't mean to make you go through all that – any of you."

Garrus just stared at her.

"But since I can't do that," she went on, "I'll do what I can now and hope for the best. Hopefully, with a little luck and a baby krogan ally, we can stop these Collectors and move on." She gave him a rather shaky smile.

"Damn it!" Garrus said, turning to pound his fist on the console. Shepard jumped.

"Watch it, turian," she snapped, her voice taking on an icy edge. "That's our new gun system there."

"I didn't..." Garrus broke off and his mandibles flared. "You do realize that you're apologizing to me for getting killed," he said at last.

"Your point?"

"My point was you shouldn't have to apologize – to me, or Kaidan – or anyone. You'd shouldn't have to explain yourself."

"But I do, Garrus," she said, her face serious. "And Kaidan deserved that apology. I'm just sorry that I didn't say it on Horizon when...when I had the chance."

"He wasn't the only one grieving, Shepard," Garrus said, his voice sounding oddly throaty. "But he acted like he was the only one who lost you, like he was the only one who..."

Shepard looked up at Garrus, but the turian quickly turned away.

"Garrus?" she asked.

"Never mind," he muttered.

"Garrus..." Shepard said slowly. She almost asked him if he had known, even back then, on the old Normany, about her and Kaidan. But somehow, the words got stuck in her throat. Clearly, he knew now, given what Kaidan had said on Horizon. And she found herself unwilling to ask about the past. At the time she had believed no one knew, except maybe Wrex. She hesitated to break that illusion.

Instead, she said, "I'm disappointed in him, Garrus, I am. But I still... Hell, I don't know how to say this..."

"You still want him to come with us. And if he was willing, you'd put him on your team for every damn mission."

"Yeah," she said without hesitation. "I would."

Garrus shook his head. "After everything he said?"

"Well, if he came back, it would mean he'd reconsidered all that, right? It would be an apology of sorts."

Garrus made a sound that she assumed was the turian equivalent of a snort.

"Besides," Shepard added, "It would be stupid to turn away a soldier like Kaidan. The man's the best damn fighter I've ever known. Aside from me, of course," she added, smiling a little, trying to joke. Garrus chuckled slightly and shook his head.

"That's not why you'd take him with us," Garrus said. His voice sounded oddly hollow.

"Not the only reason, no," Shepard admitted.

She made a face. It was true. With Kaidan, her reasons were always mixed. Every decision she had made about him had been caught between love and duty. On Virmire, on every mission, she had always had to think of him as a soldier, even as she _couldn't_ just think of him as a soldier. She hated that, and yet, she simply didn't know how to pull those two strands apart in her mind.

But she didn't say all that. It was hard enough to admit it to herself, much less to Garrus, who clearly had developed some kind of contempt for Kaidan based on the man's actions on Horizon. And Garrus, it seemed, was more deeply troubled by Horizon than she had known. Once again, Shepard realized that she had been neglecting her crew. And in the case of Garrus, she had been neglecting a friend. The thought shamed her.

"What's the matter, Garrus?" she asked, trying to set her personal worries aside. "You seem..."

"It's nothing," Garrus said.

"Come on, Garrus," Shepard pressed. "Is it because Kaidan thought you were with Cerberus, too? Did that bother you?"

Garrus shook his head. "No. That... He was an idiot, but..."

"Talk to me, Garrus," Shepard asked, gently.

The turian fixed Shepard with a glare. He paused, then his mandibles flared. "Alright, damn it. You want to know?" He started pacing back and forth in the small space. Shepard suddenly found the effect was rather like being shut in the batteries with an angry tiger.

"Kaidan was always so damn...smug," he spat out at last.

"Smug?" Shepard laughed in spite of Garrus' apparent anger. "Kaidan?" Garrus frowned.

"Kaidan Alenko was smug?" Shepard repeated. "Are we talking about the same Kaidan here, Garrus?"

"You never saw it," Garrus said, his voice intense. "Since you were what he was so smug about."

"Oh."

Shepard blinked. Suddenly, a very strange thought crossed her mind. Was Garrus possibly implying...? No. It couldn't be. The thought was so strange, she shoved it aside immediately. She tried on a different thought: one that wasn't quite so awkward.

"I see," she said, aiming for a nonchalant tone. "I'm guessing that Kaidan and I made things uncomfortable?"

Garrus stiffened at once.

"I mean, you knew, right?" Shepard went on. She supposed she'd have to talk about this after all. She took a breath and added, "About Kaidan and me...back then."

"I think the whole damn crew knew about you two, Shepard," Garrus said, looking down at his feet. Shepard swallowed.

"Right," she said, chagrined. "Well, we were..." She grimaced. "The two of us were trying to be professional, truly, we were. And...I'm sorry. It must have been hard – on you especially."

Garrus' gaze flew to hers, his eyes startled. "Why me, especially?"

"Well," she went on with a shrug. "You were on our team the most. That must have been...uncomfortable...to pretend you didn't know when you did. It must have made things awkward, having to tiptoe around all that."

"Tiptoe?"

"Pretend you didn't know," Shepard clarified. "That's...embarrasing when the soldiers you're with aren't acting like soldiers."

"Yeah," Garrus nodded, looking somehow relieved, as if he was glad she'd found the words for him. "That's what it was exactly. On turian ships, we don't have the same rules about..." He flinched and broke off. "But still, sometimes I..._we_... the crew...didn't know what to say around you two."

"Okay," Shepard nodded grimly. "I suspected..." She sighed. "I'm sorry for that. That was wrong of me. Kaidan warned me..." She shook her head and raised her eyes to meet his. "I really didn't want that to happen. And I bet talking about it now isn't helping much."

"Not really," Garrus said tightly.

"Okay," Shepard nodded. "From now on, no more talking about that."

Garrus looked like he was going to say something else, but then he just nodded.

"Alright then," Shepard said, firmly. "My apologies for that. And for what it's worth, Garrus, I'm also sorry that...I died."

"You don't need to..." Garrus glared at her.

"Last time, I swear," she interrupted, holding her hands up. Garrus just shook his head and turned away.

"Garrus," Shepard added, softly. "Is this really...about your team?"

"My team," he looked at her, bewildered. "What do you mean?"

"I just..." Shepard paused, then decided to spell out her theory all the same. "Sidonis betrayed you. In a way, Kaidan..." she stopped, not wanting to make that comparison exactly, nor bring Kaidan up again.

"It wasn't the same," Garrus said, angrily.

"Of course not," Shepard agreed. "For one thing, Kaidan didn't get us all killed."

"Though he certainly didn't help us out, either," Garrus grumbled.

"True," Shepard nodded. "I was just thinking that... well, Kaidan behaved in a way you disapprove of. And you're already feeling like there are very few people you can trust. And then, to have him walk away..." She pursed her lips. "It's hard not to have your old friends at your back. Or side," she corrected herself. "At your side."

Garrus shrugged his massive shoulders. "I liked Kaidan... Alenko," he said. "I did. I just envied..." He stopped suddenly, frowned, then went on.

"He shouldn't have done that, Shepard. It wasn't quite a betrayal, but it wasn't right, either. And if he does come back, don't go easy on him. He ought to suffer a little for what he said to you."

"You're bloodthirsty, you know that Garrus?" Shepard laughed. Then she frowned as Garrus turned away, angrily.

"Hey," she said, "I didn't mean it like..."

"Is there anything else you need from me?" Garrus said sharply.

"Not...no." She paused, then added, "Garrus, even if it's just the two of us, I'm still your team. I'm here if you need me. You always said that to me. And I want you to know, it's true of me, too – for you."

Garrus' gaze swung to her and he gave her a long, searching look. Shepard began to feel strangely uncomfortable again.

"Garrus?" she asked, looking at him with confusion in her eyes.

The turian shook his head, recovering quickly.

"Thanks, Shepard," he said. "I...appreciate that. I just..." He stiffened. "I should probably get back to work."

"Okay," Shepard said, walking slowly towards the door. "Just..." she paused and looked over her shoulder. "Just take care, Garrus. And call me if you need anything at all."

"Right," Garrus said, not looking at her. After the doors closed, he let his shoulders droop.

"Right," he murmured.


	45. Loyalty

_Chapter 45_

_(loyalty)_

_

* * *

_

**Author's Note: **If you're a subscriber, sorry about the goof. I've been tidying up some earlier parts of Valkyrie and Chosen and dropped a chapter here instead of there. Part of writing flashbacks is that I have in my head what I like to think that happened between ME1 and ME2. I see that time as an up-and-down figuring-things-out time. But until recently, I'd been showing mostly the angsty stuff without the fun times I think happened. I showed primarily Kaidan-uncertain times and less of the Kyrie-uncertain times and almost none of the both-of-them-_certain _times. So I went back and tried to have Chosen's flashback chapters be less "one note". All that goes to say, if you've been following those stories, that's why you got an update.

**As for this story:** post-Horizon-to-end, I plan to follow the canon, but I spy several Cerberus conspiracies still going strong. We'll see if Kyrie can pull free of them. And, of course, Kaidan didn't just go away. The man was doing something, even if he was _not_ with Shepard (boo on him). So, if you wanted to know how Kaidan and Kyrie continued on...

* * *

Shepard stumbled out of the Mako feeling even more exhausted than usual. When had returning from missions gotten to be so...sad?

_Since Horizon_, the answer immediately came to her mind. _Since you realized that Kaidan wasn't coming with you - and he isn't here to unzip your jumpsuit when you get back to the ship._

It was true, too. And she did miss that unzipping. Still, Shepard realized, she had to keep moving. Kaidan was becoming more and more the light at the end of this Cerberus tunnel, this promised "maybe" that kept her going. And since it seemed like there was no other light in sight...

Shepard glanced around, then, seeing no one nearby, she flipped open her omnitool. This was becoming a bad habit and she knew it, but ever since Mordin had wiped the 'tool clean for her and helped her set up an encrypted folder in it, she couldn't help herself. After all, she thought, one of these days she was going to find a way to get Kaidan a message, and until then she would prepare what she had to say to him.

The trouble was, she thought with a twinge of embarassment, she had started to write messages for him all the damn time...

_Dear Kaidan,_

_You wouldn't believe the mess I'm leaving behind for the Alliance today. Actually, you would: an officer who took advantage of his rank is now being picked up by the fleet to face charges. It's going to be ugly. _

_A few weeks back I took one of the crew to deal with some old issues. Now, suddenly, everyone wants a 'closure' field trip with the captain. We're talking revenge, saving lab assistants - and yes, I am serious about the last one, there. At least the baby krogan just wants to kill stuff. I'm worried about Garrus though, Kaidan. I think he needs closure more than anyone, but he still won't talk to me since –_

Since we argued about you, Shepard thought. But she didn't write that. Instead she typed:

_...since he told me about the friends he lost on Omega._

_You know, there's another person who isn't getting any closure on this ship, Kaidan, and that's me. The trouble is, I'm not sure I want it. God, I wish you were here right now so I could – _

"Commander," Miranda stepped out of nowhere. Shepard jumped, then quickly recovered herself. Swiftly, she saved the file and shut down the omnitool. One of these days, she thought, she was going to have to sort through the mess piling up in that folder. As of yet, she had several started messages and had still come up with nothing she would ever want to send.

"I need to talk to you about Illium," the Cerberus officer went on, not even stopping to ask Shepard what she was doing.

Shepard scowled. "Lawson, we're on our way there."

"But..."

"Commander?" Yeoman Chamber's voice came over the comm. "The Illusive Man is speaking to Jacob in the comm room. I believe he wants to see you, too."

"Coming," Shepard said quickly. She was just as eager to get away from Miranda as she was to catch the Illusive Man for a minute. The guy popped up at the most inopportune times.

"Commander!" Miranda called after her.

"Can't keep your boss waiting, Lawson," Shepard said as she strode away.

Miranda just stood there in the cargo bay, staring after Shepard, her expression strangely desperate.

* * *

"Alenko!"

Kaidan jumped, then looked up and stood. He had completely forgotten how long he'd been here, staring into his coffee. Time got strange when he had no work to do and no one to share the leisure hours with. He couldn't even recall what his mind had been brooding on. Something about Shepard, Cerberus, and unanswered emails, no doubt.

"Dean," Kaidan said, shaking his friend's hand. "How are you?"

"Good," the man said, grinning. "Real good."

"That's...great," Kaidan said. "Things with you and...ah..." He tried to remember the name of the girl, but couldn't place her face, even.

"Katie," Dean said, nodding. "Yeah. Things are..." he grinned to himself. "Good."

Kaidan suddenly felt envious. He wished he could be standing here, grinning like an idiot over how good things were with some girl. The problem was, Kaidan thought, he'd gone and picked himself the most complicated woman in the galaxy – and he wasn't even counting the situation she was in as part of the equatoin.

Then again, Kaidan thought to himself, if he had it to do over again, would he have chosen anyone else?

That was a hard question to answer, really. He didn't know anymore. That was, after all, why he was sitting here at this Earth-Pacific-Coast-style coffee shop, feeling completely numb and staring into his cup. Half of the time, Kaidan thought, it seemed clear to him that someone as amazing as Shepard was worth the trouble, worth the wait, worth finding out what was going on and worth working through it all.

The other half of the time, he'd recall all those days of regs and frustration and how damn bossy she'd been. He'd think of the things that made them so different and their occasional fights and then he'd think of Cerberus and her silence for all those years and he would decide that he might as well just move on and wish her well.

But then when he started thinking about who he'd move on _with_ and what he'd move on _to_, inevitably Kaidan would start thinking about those times with Shepard that had been _right_. He'd think of the things they had in common – and of the things that made them different but good for each other. He'd think of the night before Ilos and all those other nights... And then he'd be right back to the start of the cycle all over again.

He really was in limbo, he thought. And since she still hadn't written to him, he had wandered through the last few days, just...doing nothing, really. It wasn't at all like him, and that drove him crazy.

"You been busy?" Dean asked him, startling him out of his daze.

"Huh? Yeah," Kaidan said. "Until...recently."

"I guess," Dean said, frowning a little. "I mean, Lisa asked about you. Said you hadn't written her back."

"Who?" Kaidan asked before he could stop himself. Dean's eyes widened.

"I mean, right," Kaidan said, hastily backing up. "Sure...I...It's been a long assignment." He finished lamely.

Well that was great, Kaidan thought. He'd been so busy watching his inbox for mail from Shepard, he'd completely forgotten to write back to the doctor he'd gone out on a date with. That was just rude, and he knew it. If he needed any more proof that Shepard had completely thrown him off balance on Horizon, there it was.

"I guess," Dean said, frowning. "Hey man, you know Lisa..." He stopped himself and shrugged. "You know what? Never mind. It's not my business. We're all going out tonight for drinks and dancing if you want to come. Lisa might be there, she might not. It's up to you."

"I..." Kaidan could think of a number of reasons why he should go – to get out, to stop looking at his mail every few hours. But he also felt a little guilty even considering it. If Shepard was alive, was trying to stop the Collectors, and he just...went on a date with some other woman...

Once again, Kaidan simply couldn't think. How could he move on from Shepard when he didn't even know where he stood with her?

_Hell_, Kaidan thought, he'd have to say hello to Lisa sometime. He might as well spend the day deciding what he wanted to say to her and then actually say it tonight. Now he just needed to decide what his words ought to be...

"Alright," Kaidan said at last. "What time?"

* * *

"What do you mean it wasn't you?" Jacob asked, his voice irritable. Shepard strode into the comm room behind him, joining the discussion between the lieutenant and his boss.

"Jacob," the Illusive Man said, "If I had leaked the information about the Guernsback, I would be smiling at your resolution to the situation." To Shepard's mind, the man sounded like he was talking to a child.

"Really?" Shepard asked, stepping into the circle of holographic display to stand by Jacob's side. "Because given the results, it sounds like something you'd have your hands in."

"You know very little about me, Shepard," the Illusive Man said, darkly. "Don't presume to understand my intentions."

Shepard lifted her chin. She didn't miss the veiled challenge in his tone. She just wasn't sure she completely understood what the challenge was all about.

"Cerberus is ultimately about humanity," he went on, flicking ash from his cigarette. "My people are valuable to me."

"Tools are valuable," Shepard replied, raising an eyebrow. "People are important." When the Illusive Man said nothing, Jacob frowned and glanced from one of them to the other.

"Fine, you didn't forward it," he said angrily. "So who did?"

"I did," Miranda said, stepping into the room behind them.

Shepard, Jacob, and the Illusive Man's holograph all turned to stare at her.

"Did you have some reason for that or did you just want to see him squirm?" Shepard asked.

As Miranda explained her reasons, Jacob stared at the woman. Shepard, however, felt a sudden rush of understanding. _Jacob and Miranda_, she thought. _Of course._ She should have seen it. She was usually good at reading these kinds of things among her crew, only she'd been so distracted.

_Proof again that you need to get a grip, Shepard,_ she thought. If she was missing undercurrents like these on her crew, that was not a good thing. Once again, she resolved to step up her care of the people that she was working with, regardless of what she felt about this mutual friend of theirs.

And speaking of that Illusive personage, he clearly thought the discussion was over. "Miranda," he said. "We'll discuss your liberal interpretation of security protocol in private. Shepard. Jacob."

With that, he waved them from the conversation.

Shepard opened her mouth, torn between wanting to leave Lawson to a set down from the Illusive Man and her own desire to talk to him. Weariness won out, however. She shrugged off Jacob left the room.

* * *

"Miranda." The Illusive Man said as soon as the door had slid shut on both Shepard and Jacob's departure.

"Sir?"

Miranda stood more stiffly than usual. She was starting to walk more like the military crew members, she realized. Her more casual, loose way of carrying herself was daily becoming more rigid. She wasn't sure what that meant, exactly. But then, she'd been feeling slight changes all around her for a while now and she didn't know what any of them meant.

"I don't think I need to remind you that this mission is not about working out personal business." The Illusive Man fixed her with a glittering blue glare, then snuffed out his cigarette.

"This crew needs to be...settled," she protested. "_I_ need to be settled."

"We have the situation on Illium under control, Miranda," the Illusive Man told her. "Pestering Shepard over the matter is beneath you."

Miranda started at his words. How was it that he knew she'd been talking to Shepard about it? Miranda wondered, wildly. How was it that he always seemed to know?

"I know sir," she said, "It's just that..."

"If you make it to Nos Astros in time to meet our contact, you can do as you please. If not, we'll make the move without you. Our people can handle it," he continued when she opened her mouth to protest, "And I have other duties that need your attention."

Miranda placed her hands behind her back. "Very well, sir," she told him. "What is it you need from me?"

"Shepard plans to send a message to a certain former crew member," he told her. "What that message is, I am uncertain. Likely it is an olive branch of some sort. You need to keep that from happening."

"I..." Miranda blinked. "What?"

"Commander Alenko is back on the Citadel," he went on. "I think it's best that he stays there – or, at least, that he stays as far away from Shepard. His influence over her these last few weeks – even in absentia – is quite...troubling."

"He..." Miranda tried to think how to explain it. "Sir, what he said to her on Horizon..."

"Yes, I know," the Illusive Man told her. "And Shepard has been brooding about it ever since." He frowned. "I don't like brooding. We need to keep her moving. I don't want her stopping to think..."

He broke off, then swiftly said: "I don't want her stopping."

"She is moving forward, sir." Miranda didn't know why she said that, why she felt the need to defend Shepard, but she did.

Perhaps it was because the woman had taken the time to help Jacob find his father, Miranda thought. Not many captains would do that for their crew – particularly crew they so distrusted. But Shepard had said something about never leaving family behind, and agreed to see it done. It gave Miranda hope that perhaps Shepard would understand...

Miranda frowned. She didn't want to have to put her cards on the table with Shepard, but it seemed she would have to.

"Did you hear me, Miranda?" The Illusive Man glared at her.

"Sir?" She blinked. She had not been listening, and she couldn't remember the last time that had happened.

"Shepard needs to pick up speed here. She needs to keep her gaze focused on the path before her and she does _not_ need to be distracted by Alliance ties. If you can, intercept her messages by whatever means possible."

"I would have thought that EDI..."

"You know as well as I that EDI has limitations, not the least of which is the fact that she can only reach as far as the ship's computers and whatever system she can hack into. Plus, she has her...blocks. She is no match for a person with her eyes and ears open. Keep your eyes open and fixed on Shepard, Miranda," he said. Then he smiled and added:

"Just as I keep my eyes fixed on all of you."


	46. DNA

_Chapter 46_

_(DNA)_

_(**Author's Note:** credit to fanfic author sinvraal for her observation about human fingers in _Exitus_. I had fun mulling that one over while playing the Collector mission._

_As for myself, I'm convinced this is what Cerberus was planning...)_

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Shepard stepped out of the elevator, reached for the doorway to her quarters – then stopped. Running her fingers through the short strands of her hair, she leaned back against the wall, slid down and landed on the ground with her legs out before her. She sat there for a moment, hands in hair, elbows on knees. Then she lifted her head and held her hands out before her.

_Five fingers_, she thought. _More like monkeys than any other sapient species – I wonder what turians make of that. They probably think it's weird_.

She ran a hand through her hair. _Dead protein strands_, Garrus had once called them. It was a strange thing to have, when you really thought about it. The purpose of hair was rather minimized after so many years of evolution. It was now a thing of vanity, not warmth and survival as much.

"So why humans?" she murmured aloud. "Why?

Shepard saw her hands were trembling. She'd gone through this after many battles: dealt with nerves that simply would not calm down. In the past, she would glare at her fingers, seeing the tension and continued shock a kind of weakness and she would take deep breaths and will it away. But now she looked at it clinically, just allowing the shaking to continue. As she stared at her hands, she recalled the mission they'd just completed, the place they'd been, the things they'd seen – and what they'd learned:

_"My God," she had whispered into the quiet, grave-like ship. "The Protheans didn't vanish."_

_Protheans_, Shepard thought, looking down at her shaking hands. As a child, she'd been taught that the ancient race was the pinnacle of civilization – what all space-faring species aspired to. They were compared in human circles to ancient Greece, ancient Rome, to the civilizations of China. Each race had their analogues and still, the Protheans surpassed them all. Yet, Shepard herself had uncovered the truth of their pitiful destruction. And now she had found proof of their continuing bondage: the Protheans had been enslaved by the Reapers, genetically modified until they became the Collectors.

_But why? _She wondered again._ Why?_

Shepard had studied slavers. She had taken out several trafficking posts in her time as a special forces operative and she knew how those crime rings worked: prey on the weak, establish known routes of trade, grease hands to keep those routes open, and move faster than the local law enforcement. But this, what the Collectors were doing – or rather, what the Reapers were doing – made no sense. Slavers were after money, their clients were after workers. It was despicable, but simple: the ultimate goal was to turn people into labor. But the Reapers appeared to be creating laborers for the sake of...creating more laborers? Without knowing what the workers were needed for, there was no way to know why they were needed in the first place.

_And why humans?_

A fragment of what Harbinger said popped suddenly into her mind:

_"Human. Viable possibility, impressive genetic malleability."_

He had shouted that in triumph as he threw dark energy about, possessing the bodies of the other Collectors seemingly at will. At the time, Shepard had filed his words away as something peculiar, but even now she could make no sense of them.

The only thing she could make sense of was that the Collectors had to be stopped. They had room enough in their ship to fill it will all the citizens of Earth – and Shepard had a sinking feeling that was just what they planned to do. She knew she needed to build up her team and find a way through Omega 4 relay so that she could stike the bastards where they lived. And now she knew where that base was, though it's location boggled the mind.

There was another thing that made sense now, too. And that was that the Illusive Man could not be trusted. He had shown his hand today, allowing them to walk right into a trap. His damnable disregard for her, the crew, even EDI had been made abundantly clear.

Shepard smiled grimly. It was funny, actually. Somehow, his betrayal put her in a good mood – or rather, in a determined sort of mood. It was a hell of a lot better than a brooding mood. His stunt reminded her of where she stood: she was Cerberus's tool, and the Illusive Man would use her as such. She had worried about getting comfortable with the enemy, but now that she knew just how little she mattered, she wouldn't forget it. And there was something else that had happened because of this, something she was willing to guess even the Illusive Man hadn't counted on:

He'd pissed off the entire crew with his little stunt.

Shepard's eyes narrowed as she smiled. Yes, he had drawn lines, whether he realized it or not. Miranda had been stunned to hear of the Illusive Man's involvement. Jacob had looked fit to be tied. Joker was furious, Kelly disturbed, and Garrus, not surprisingly, had a wry joke to make about the whole thing as he'd taken his place at Shepard's side during the debriefing. Shepard wondered if the scales were finally falling off of everyone's eyes. They had certainly fallen from hers.

Yes, the Illusive Man had shown his true colors today: reminded her and every member of the crew what he was. He was a man bent on getting whatever he wanted by whatever means.

Though, Shepard added to herself, cocking her head, she still wasn't quite sure exactly _what_ he really wanted. If he was just trying to stop the Collectors, then she could almost see his point. But she was willing to bet anything, even the 5 billion credits she was indebted to Cerberus for her new body, that there was more to it than that. She just wished there had been more time to explore the ship. It was a nightmarish place, and yet, there were answers hidden there. After all, it was the same ship that had hit Horizon – the same ship that had hit the Normandy...

Shepard shuddered. God, she was glad that Kaidan had not been taken away in that thing. If he had, he'd likely be dead, just another broken body in a heap. She felt a flood of relief once again to know that she had saved him - regardless of how he had reacted to her afterward.

With that thought, Shepard glanced to her wrist. She had half a mind to boot up her omnitool and write another message for him when the doors to the elevator slid open and Miranda walked out.

"Lawson," Shepard said, looking up at the woman in mild surprise.

"Shepard!" Miranda jumped, clearly not expecting the commander to be sitting on the floor. "What are you...?"

"Just thinking about your boss's little stunt," Shepard replied, hauling herself to her feet. "What are you doing up here?"

"I need to talk to you," Miranda said, looking from the commander to the camera in the corner above Shepard's head.

Shepard considered the woman a moment, then shrugged. She walked into her room and let the doors slide shut behind them. She turned and leaned a hip against the desk, folding her arms over her chest.

"So," she asked. "Is this about what we saw down there or...?"

"It's about Illium," Miranda said, glancing about nervously. "Did Mordin really pull all the devices in your room?"

"You ought to know," Shepard said, raising an eyebrow. "You get clearance for all the surveillance footage."

"I do," Miranda said. She hesitated, then asked: "Are we headed to Illium at last?"

"Yes," Shepard nodded. "By way of a few stops. We should be there in about ten days."

"We...I..." Miranda shifted nervously. "I need to be there within the week."

"Care to explain why?" Shepard asked, curious at Miranda's obvious distress.

Miranda turned to consider Shepard's fish tank, ""I find myself in the uncomfortable position of asking for your help, Shepard," she said, softly.

"How so?" Shepard asked.

"I..." Miranda paused, her face still turned away. "I...have a sister."

"A sister?" Shepard softened at once as images of her own sisters coming to mind. So often she had thought of them, of what they might be doing. They would be finishing university now, if they had lived. Shepard realized she had never considered Miranda having family, but then, she hadn't really considered Miranda much at all.

Apparently, Miranda did have family. The woman laid out her reasons for wanting to get to Illium and oversee the transfer of her sister from one safe house to another. Shepard listened in silence, then when Miranda had finished, she took a deep breath.

"I believe I owe you an apology, Lawson," she said. "I don't always like your boss, but I'd been letting that keep me from making sure that my XO was alright, and that was wrong of me. We'll get there in time to make this transfer, count on it."

Miranda blinked a few times. "Thank you, Shepard," she said at last.

"However," Shepard said. "Next time, just tell me this kind of thing up front. If you'd mentioned your sister..." She broke off, realizing that there might have been another reason for Miranda's hesitation. "Does the Illusive Man know?"

"He's overseeing the transfer, yes," Miranda said, slowly. "But he thinks I'm overreacting. He didn't want me to side track you from our mission in any way."

"I see," Shepard said tightly.

She did see. The Illusive prick had probably bought Miranda's loyalty in exchange for seeing her sister safe. That he would use her family as ransom, as bait, just pissed Shepard off. She tried to keep her voice neutral as she said: "I can see why this would upset you. We'll take care of it. Is it possible to make the transfer...without involving Cerberus?"

"Perhaps," Miranda said, hopefully. "I would like to..." She nodded. "Maybe we can manage that."

"Let's try," Shepard said. "The less people in on your secret, the better, right?"

"Right," Miranda nodded. The two women looked at each other for a moment, a kind of, strange quiet understanding settling over them. The Miranda broke it by saying:

"I don't recall that picture of Commander Alenko being part of the original decor."

Shepard whirled around, belatedly realizing that her proximity to the frame had triggered it behind her back. _Well, damn_, she thought. That certainly ruined any illusions she'd tried to construct for Cerberus regarding how well she was getting over Kaidan.

"Did you put it there yourself?" Miranda asked. Her voice was cool, almost disinterested – almost. But Shepard knew curiosity masked by icy tones. She was a master at it herself.

"You have something to say, Lawson?" Shepard asked, her voice equally cold.

"No, I..." the Cerberus operative paused, then seemed to make up her mind. "I already knew what kind of a relationship you had with your – lieutenant."

"Oh?" Shepard asked, tightly. _How?_ she wondered. _Was it before or after Horizon that I tipped my hand to Cerberus?_

"I rebuilt you, if you remember," Miranda said, raising an eyebrow. "In my initial scans of your body I found some foreign...DNA." The woman glanced briefly to Shepard's crotch before raising her eyes again to her face. The slightest blush touched Miranda's cheeks. Shepard was sure the blush that crept up her own face was anything but slight.

"Holy shit," Shepard gasped, her cool demeanor suddenly gone. "You're kidding, right?"

"I ran an analysis," Miranda said quickly. "I wanted to know what we were dealing with."

"You wanted to make sure I hadn't been man-handled, you mean." The implications of the word suddenly took on multiple connotations. She frowned, feeling a little sick.

"Precisely." Miranda nodded. "I couldn't be sure what had happened to you. As we were going to be using your DNA to re-grow organs and such, I needed to make sure all the DNA I was using was – yours. When I found..." She paused, looking for the right words, "...anomalous DNA samples, I was concerned."

"I can imagine," Shepard murmured. "So you found..."

She couldn't bring herself to say it. She knew that what she and Kaidan had been doing just hours before the attack on the Normandy and she just couldn't find any words that didn't seem to cheapen that last moment between them. In truth, they'd only broken regs _on_ the ship a total of three times and she could remember each moment with heartbreaking clarity. It seemed wrong, somehow, that it had come to that. What Kaidan had been to her was so much more than sex, and yet, in the end, all that had been left of their relationship was...

Shepard pressed her fingers to her eyes, fighting back both a headache and tears. "So, you ran a test on said...DNA...and..."

"The match came back from the Alliance database as Commander Alenko's."

"My God," Shepard murmured, letting her hand drop. Of all the conversations she really never thought she'd be having, discussing 'proof' of her relationship with Kaidan with a woman she barely knew and only slightly trusted was certainly one of them. "Does the Illusive Man know?"

"No," Miranda said flatly. "No one knows about that but me."

Shepard looked at her in surprise. "You didn't tell him?"

"Not about that, no," Miranda said, shifting a little on her feet. "I didn't think it was his business to know. Or mine, really. I thought that if it became an issue, I would address it. But until that time, I felt that whatever you had been doing in that regard was your private life – your _past_ private life." She added. "So unless it threatened the mission, I would not say anything."

"It won't threaten the mission," Shepard said swiftly. "And I would greatly appreciate it if you didn't say anything to anyone." She paused, feeling suddenly uncomfortable at the thought that she was now, somehow, in Miranda's debt.

"I didn't think it would," Miranda replied. The two women considered each other.

"How does he know?" Shepard asked. "The Illusive Man, I mean. He must have known about me and Kaidan before Horizon. How?"

"I don't know," Miranda said, her face growing troubled. "He knows...everything, it seems. I have no idea how he gets his information."

"He doesn't know everything," Shepard told her. "He has blind spots."

"True," Miranda said. "But he doesn't like to be reminded of that. It makes him angry." Shepard blinked in surprise. That had almost sounded like a friendly warning.

"I suppose he could have found out any number of ways," Miranda added after a moment. "Hotel records, a bought crew member... That picture," She raised an eyebrow. "As for myself, I found nothing in any official files. The Illusive Man was the one who informed me that he suspected ties between the two of you. His suggestion was why I first checked the Alliance DNA database when I found..."

"Right," Shepard cut her off quickly. "I'm glad you didn't have to check the Cerberus database." She added with a shudder.

Miranda looked at her, eyes troubled. "Shepard...I..." She broke off and frowned.

"What?" Shepard stiffened at her tone. She had a feeling she wasn't going to like what she was going to hear next.

"I checked your DNA regularly," Miranda said, fixing her with a look. "I want you to know that. So I'm sure that no one..."

"Manhandled me?" Shepard said, unable to suppress a shiver of revulsion.

"Yes," Miranda nodded. But then she looked away.

"What?" Shepard prompted, her stomach knotting.

Miranda paused, then said, "Wilson worked on you when I wasn't there. I didn't know that until...recently."

Shepard felt the knot tighten. "What does that mean?" she asked, her voice flat.

"It means..." Miranda let out a breath. "I don't know what I means."

"So he could have..." Shepard couldn't finish.

"No," Miranda said, shaking her head. "I was running scans on you constantly. And Wilson, for all his faults..." She shuddered as well. "The Illusive Man oversaw the whole process. It seems that he...tasked Wilson with cloning your reproductive cells."

Shepard felt only marginally relieved. "Why, exactly?"

"I don't know," Miranda told her. "I think...I suspect he was trying to save your genetic data to build..."

"A clone?"

"Actually," Miranda said slowly, "I can't help but wonder if the Illusive Man planned to..."

"To what?" Shepard asked, guessing several possibilities, each of them worse than the last.

"I...I don't know," Miranda said at last.

"You think he might have wanted to grow whole pack of Shepards," Shepard said, unable to hide the disgust she felt. "To make clones of me like your father made you as a clone of himself."

Miranda looked at her, her pale eyes full of worry. Then her gaze flicked to the picture on Shepard's desk. Shepard's mouth dropped open as an awful realization dawned.

"No," she said. Her blood felt like it was freezing in her veins. "He wouldn't."

"I'm not certain what his plans were," Miranda said hastily. "I just...speculated."

"You _speculated_," Shepard repeated, her heart thundering in her chest.

Miranda just shook her head. "I don't know."

"The Illusive Man showed a ridiculous amount of interest in Kaidan," Shepard managed at last. "You think he was..."

"You don't know that," Miranda said. "_I_ don't know that."

"But he might have considered..."

"Wilson once..." Miranda grimaced, then went on. "He once asked me how difficult it would be to obtain genetic material from the Alliance Command medical facility. They keep blood samples on file, there."

"For identification purposes and major re-constructive surgery," Shepard nodded. "Yes, I know. But those files are guarded..."

"Not as well as you'd think."

"You had Kaidan's..._blood_?"

"No," Miranda shook her head. "Wilson had nothing...on hand."

Shepard realized her hands were fisted at her sides, flickering with biotic energy. "You're sure?"

"Quite sure. I hacked – I gained access to Wilson's logs. He hadn't gotten very far in the process. From what I can tell, he only managed to salvage your DNA and he was speculating on the possibility of gaining additional genetic material from...from suitable candidates. Commander Alenko's name was on his list."

Shepard just stared at her.

"Nothing was done," Miranda assured her. "Wilson said in his logs that he wasn't sure if your tissues were responding to the injections meant to repair the reproductive cellular damage. All viable samples he had were lost in the destruction of the Lazarus facility." Her lips twisted in a sneer. "He took no pride in his work, the way he was ready to dump you the moment that you didn't react to his treatments in the way that he wished."

Shepard stood there, just trying to take all this in. One thing now seemed crystal clear to her:

"That was the Illusive Man's back-up plan, wasn't it?" she practically spat the words. "If you hadn't been able to bring me back, he would have...what? Made a clone of me? Made a _child_ from me? A child from Ka..."

She couldn't say it, couldn't even wrap her mind around it.

"Oh my God," she murmured. "I cannot believe this. Your boss was actually thinking of building...from Kaidan and me..."

She swallowed hard, willing herself not to throw up. There were theories that biotic powers could be passed down genetically. Biotic power, at root, came from mutations in the nervous system. However, there was no conclusive proof that anything other than in-utero exposure to element zero could cause biotic powers in humans. But if anyone would try and create a biotic baby in a lab and raise it from birth to soldier – well, it would be Cerberus. This was the organization that created Jack, after all.

"Was he going to hold the child hostage to make me do his bidding?" Shepard spat out, "Or did he plan to have it take out the Collectors in my place?"

As she spoke, she suddenly realized that the stakes here were higher than she had known. If she failed, who knew what the Illusive Man would do to ensure success? She could only hope that Miranda was right and the lab samples had been fully destroyed. But there were other copies of her DNA out there, for all that she knew. There were probably still samples on file with the Alliance, and there were probably samples on this ship. And if she were to die and they brought back her body...

_No_, she thought, firmly. She'd wasn't about to let her body fall into Cerberus hands again. She'd survive this so-called suicide mission and get back and warn Kaidan...

_Of what?_ she thought wildly. _Warn him that being with you is probably the most insane and dangerous thing he could possibly do with his life? Warn him that the Illusive Man is considering the both of you as raw genetic material for his unknown, but, no doubt, crazy plans?_

The thought just made her sick.

"Commander Alenko was just one of many names on Wilson's list," Miranda told her. "There were even other women on that list. It was simply a database of preferred human DNA. It wasn't just about you."

That made Shepard feel marginally better – until she realized what Miranda was actually saying.

"Wait. _What?_" Shepard gaped at her, appalled. "You're telling me that..." She stared at the woman, her eyes widening. "Your boss was planning to grow a goddamn _army? _My God, he's just like the Reapers – building tools for his battles!"

"The Illusive Man is trying to protect humanity!" Miranda said, her tone defensive and angry. "He wanted to compile databases on DNA from known heroes, trying to pinpoint what it is that makes humanity unique. He wants to save our species by bringing out the strongest traits in our race."

"You were trying to create a fucking ubermench!" Shepard shouted back. "Just admit it! You were..." She stalked away from the desk, then back, the picture flickering on and off behind her.

"This!" she shouted at last, grabbing a fistful of her short, golden hair. "Once humans wanted this! And they tried to..._breed_ to do it. They _killed_ to make the human race over in their own image. It was madness then, and it's madness now!"

"We're not even remotely like..."

"Nazis?" Shepard laughed bitterly. "I can see a number of parallels. It doesn't matter if its blonds or biotics you're aiming for, it's still _wrong_." She sucked in a breath and shook her head. "Lawson, I know that you think you're doing the right thing, but if you actually believe that crap then you're walking down the same path as murderers."

"Promoting genetic strength is not the same thing as...what you're suggesting," Miranda said, lifting her chin. "We need to survive as a species. You know this. That's the only thing that really matters."

"No," Shepard said, stopping short, her voice low and steady. "We need to _live_. And if we can't do that with dignity intact, then we might as well be lost to the Reapers." She turned to Miranda, her eyes glittering. "If the Reapers take our DNA and turn us into monsters or if we do it to ourselves, the result is the same. There is nothing to be gained by surviving if we lose the very thing that make us human."

"You're advocating a purist genetic line?" Miranda scoffed. "Typical colony attitude."

"No," Shepard shook her head. "You can't get away from what's happened in genetic tech over the last hundred years, even if you wanted to. But there's a world of difference in choosing to enhance our lives and just manipulating our species so that we can advance the human race into the future. It's the decision that matters, Lawson. You're talking about growing humans like plants or animals. But it ought to be about choice, and about the ability we have to love one another - and let life grow out of that."

Shepard shook her head and glared at the wall, unable to continue, almost unable to breathe. This – all of this – was disgusting, horrific.

And suddenly, she thanked God that Kaidan wasn't a part of it. She was..._glad_ that he had walked away on Horizon, glad that he was far away from this manipulation, glad that his name had only been on a list and he hadn't been mined for DNA. Bad enough that she was wrapped up in this body-rebuilding, Cerberus mess, but if Kaidan were to be caught in this web... Or a child – _his_ child...

_Their_ child...

Shepard found herself staring at the wall, feeling as though all the breath had been knocked from her body.

"You have to convince your boss to leave Kaidan alone," she told Miranda. "No more of this. No more of these...experiments."

"What makes you think the Illusive Man listens to me?" Miranda asked, her voice surprisingly bitter.

"Just..." Shepard didn't know what to say to that. "I want Kaidan safe. I don't want Cerberus hounding him anymore. I'll get the job done. Just don't involve him. If I have to walk away from him to do that..."

"I suggest that you do," Miranda said, her lips pursed. "Given what the Illusive Man was considering as an alternative, we can't afford to have you distracted by Commander Alenko now. We have a _job_ to do here."

"I hadn't forgotten, Lawson," Shepard said, her eyes narrowing. "And while I take reprimands from my subordinates when they are right – and on _that_ count, I admit you are right – I do not take kindly to manipulation or disrespect. And I most certainly want you to keep your paws off of me and my DNA – and Kaidan. Do I make myself clear?"

"Perfectly, commander," Miranda said, stiffly.

Shepard glared at her, then asked, wearily. "You swear that everything was destroyed with the Lazarus station?"

"I believe so," Miranda said. "But I'll make sure. I'll see if I can ha – if there are any further reports. And maybe Mordin can check as well."

"You mean he can hack as well," Shepard said, raising an eyebrow. When Miranda said nothing, Shepard softened to her just a bit. "I would appreciate you, keeping all of this...quiet, Lawson," she said.

"Of course," Miranda agreed. "I don't wish any of this to be...known."

Shepard looked at Miranda, considering the woman for a long moment. She wasn't sure how much of this humanity-first crap was really Miranda talking or simply the parrot-talk of a desperate girl. Perhaps Miranda clung to the ideology of this organization simply because they helped her escape a hurtful situation and protected her sister. And in that moment, Shepard realized that there might be a woman hiding behind that outrageous uniform who was worth counting as an ally.

Shepard let out a breath. "I thank you for telling me all this, Miranda. This can't have been easy."

Miranda merely nodded in reply, but her shoulders seemed to relax.

"I'll set a course for Illium," Shepard continued. "Be ready when we get there."

"Thank you, commander," Miranda said. She looked like she was about to say something more, but then she simply nodded. She and Shepard shared a glance, then the Cerberus officer nodded and left the room.

Shepard stared at the door for a long moment, then dropped into her chair. Her mind was whirling and she felt like she needed a shower. She looked at Kaidan's picture, her throat constricting at the sight of his face. She tried to think of a future with him – a child with him...

And she failed. While she was in Cerberus's hands, she simply couldn't think of being with Kaidan, because how could she possibly drag him into all this?

_I'm trying to get free of them, Kaidan,_ she thought, gazing at his picture, her heart too full to identify what, precisely, she felt. _I'm trying. Just, please, keep yourself safe, and, if you would,  
wait for me._


	47. Second Date

_Chapter 47_

_(second date)_

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"You're not going to wear that, are you man?" Kaidan stepped out of his room at the barracks into the hallway and Dean immediately frowned at him.

"Why?" Kaidan asked, looking down at his simple blue utilities.

"Every guy wears those," Dean said with a dismissive wave. "Hell, C-Sec guys wear them. Don't you have your class A's or something...?"

"Dress uniforms are meant for dress," Kaidan told him, thinking of the email he'd received about that recently – and the time he'd completely broken that rule at Shepard's request.

"Whatever," Dean said. "Come on."

The two of them walked to the nearest transport hub, Dean talking about tech all the while and how the Alliance email systems had been acting 'really screwy' lately. Kaidan listened with only half an ear, his mind wandering to the email that he'd sent recently and the reply he still had not received. He was beginning to doubt that he ever would receive a reply about Horizon. After all, he thought, what was there to say, really, that hadn't been said?

When the car let them out in a quiet, nondescript corner of the wards, Kaidan didn't much notice – until Dean led them to a door with a red cross over it.

"This isn't the club, is it?" Kaidan asked.

"No," Dean said. "This is the clinic. We're picking up the girls and we'll walk from here."

"Picking up...?" Kaidan didn't have time to finish before Dean walked in through the doors. Kaidan strode after him, wondering how in the hell he'd missed that rather critical detail in the course of their conversation. He hadn't intended to pick Lisa up. Hell, he hadn't even sent her a message. He'd just spent the whole day...moping. God, that was pathetic, he thought. He really needed a new assignment, soon.

"Dean!" a lovely voice with a thick French accent cut across the room. Kaidan looked at the speaker – a fine-boned woman with deep red hair and beautiful green eyes. She looked familiar somehow. Dean nodded to her.

"Ma'am," Dean said. "Is Katie going to be free any time soon?"

"We're just finishing up," the woman told him. Her eyes turned to Kaidan, then narrowed in curiosity. "Hello," she said. "Can I help you?"

Before Kaidan could answer, Dean clapped him on the back. "This is my buddy, Kaidan Alenko. He's here for Lisa."

"Oh?" the doctor's face became rather enigmatic with that single uttered word.

"I'm not..." Kaidan began, then stopped himself. He couldn't think of any way to get out of that assumption politely. To say he wasn't with Lisa would be rude and would raise questions, to play along was...well, it felt dishonest, but hopefully, he'd be able to clear this up soon enough.

"I'm not dressed for it," he finished, lamely.

"Told you so," Dean said, pointedly.

"Have we met before?" the doctor asked, "you seem very..."

"I was about to say the same thing," Kaidan said, trying to place the woman. Then, suddenly, he did. "Wait," he said, "You were the doctor Garrus was trying to protect. You told us about Tali – the quarian."

"You're a friend of Garrus?" The woman's whole face lit up.

_Well now,_ Kaidan thought, a little taken aback. _That was a rather unexpected reaction._ He wondered if the turian realized he'd left behind a human with a crush on him here in the Wards. It had been two years, after all. It was surprising the woman was still so...interested.

"Yeah," Kaidan said, cocking his head a little. "I was on Shepard's team."

"Really?" the doctor asked, reaching out her hand. "Well, I'm pleased to meet you again. How is Garrus? And Shepard, too? I sent her an email asking about Garrus; I sent Garrus an email, too, but neither of them wrote me back."

_Seems to be a trend_, Kaidan thought, wryly.

"I thought maybe the rumors were true that Shepard was dead, but then, I wasn't sure," the woman went on. "I also thought that perhaps if she was undercover, she wouldn't be able to access her mail."

Kaidan paused at that. He had thought of that briefly, but in all his waiting for a reply, he'd sort of...forgotten that possibility. It was likely, however, that something was keeping Shepard from writing back. Y_eah, whatever it was that caused her to join Cerberus and leave you for two years without any word, right?_ a small voice seemed to whisper in his ear.

"I...don't know how she is," Kaidan replied. That was mostly true, he thought. At least, it was true for now.

"Well," Doctor Michel said, "If you hear from either of them, please tell them I want to thank them again for everything. And I'd like to...talk...to Garrus again."

"Of course, ma'am," Kaidan said, nodding to her.

"Dean?" The plump, dimpled face of Katie appeared in the doorway to their right. Dean grinned. Kaidan stiffened as a pretty, elfin woman appeared behind her. Lisa's green eyes widened. She was wearing a tight, dark dress, her hair pulled up on top of her head in a messy bun. She looked quite pretty, Kaidan thought, absently.

"Alenko?" Lisa said. She frowned and elbowed Katie. "You could have told me that he was coming." she hissed, but not so quietly that Kaidan didn't hear her.

"I didn't know," Katie said, frowning at Dean.

"Ah, let's go, shall we?" Dean said, a little too loudly and too brightly. Kaidan nodded to the doctor, then followed Dean out into the Wards. He held the sliding door open for the ladies. Lisa glared up at him as she passed.

"What are you doing here?" she asked him frowning.

"Uh..." He stepped away from the door and let it close. "I'm sorry."

"Sorry you're here or sorry you didn't write to me after the first few letters?" she scowled.

"I told you I was going to be off the grid," Kaidan replied, not quite sure what to say. Should he be defending himself, he wondered, or just let her be angry, apologize, and let her walk away mad? He realized though, that he couldn't allow her to think that this was somehow a reflection on her. She hadn't done anything, after all.

Katie gave Kaidan a disgusted look, then looped her arm through Dean's. The two of them walked off down the street. Kaidan looked after them. Then, not wanting to be left alone with Lisa, he gestured after the two of them and fell into step behind his friend. Lisa folded her arms over her low-cut dress and followed.

"I turned down a couple of good dates for you," she told him with a glare.

"Why'd you do that?" Kaidan asked, frowning.

"Because," she said, "I was _waiting_."

"For me?" he asked, stunned. He had no idea why she would have bothered. To his mind, they'd left things very...vague.

The girl scowled, then pursed her lips. Kaidan had no idea what to say. His memory of Lisa was that she was distanct, aloof, and a little bored. He hadn't realized that what he had done – or not done, rather – would offend her. But then again, Kaidan thought with a frown, Ashley Williams had once told him that he really didn't get women. It seemed that the chief was right once again.

"If you weren't ready to get over her, you might have told me," Lisa snapped at him.

"I..." Kaidan thought instantly of Shepard, of their fight on Horizon. Then he remembered that Lisa thought he had been in love with Ashley.

"I was off the grid," he told her.

"Off the grid?" she asked, doubtfully. "For a whole month and a half you had no access to the extranet at all? Seriously?"

"Well..." Kaidan hedged. Truthfully, he could have sent a message if he'd been willing to check his extranet mail via the very slow link on Horizon, but he had been so busy he hadn't even checked his work messages. And since the attack...

Kaidan took a breath, then opted for honesty – or as close as he could get to it, these days.

"My mission went badly," he told her. "I suppose I should have said...something, but honestly, that's all I've been able to think about lately."

"How badly,? she asked him, now looking concerned.

"It's...classified," he said. "I'm fine," he added quickly. "I'll be fine. It's just...distracted me from everything else. I had a lot of reports to write up." He glanced at her, at her wide, elfin green eyes. "It wasn't anything you did, Lisa. It was just..."

_Me. Shepard. My past. Our past_.

"A mess," he finished.

She considered that for a moment. "Okay," she said, pursing her lips. "So..." she shrugged. "What now?"

"I..." Kaidan looked ahead at Dean and Katie, who had reached the doors of the club. The two of them looked so damn...happy, Kaidan thought enviously. Dean paid the cover charge, bent to whisper something in Katie's ear. She giggled and look up at him, then kissed him on the cheek.

"Alenko?" Lisa asked, drawing him back to the present. "I asked you if you were coming in or if you were just going to dump me here to watch those two make out on the dance floor for another night."

Kaidan's brows furrow at that. "So why come with them?" he asked. "Why not just go home?"

She shrugged. "I go home almost every other night."

Kaidan thought for a moment, then dug out his credits and paid the cover charge for himself and Lisa. She protested, but he cut her off, saying, "It's the least I can do."

"Not the least," she grumbled.

Inside the club, the music was pounding, the lights low, and the bodies crushed together. Kaidan and Lisa wound their way to the bar, having completely lost Dean in the maze. Lisa propped herself up on a stool and ordered a drink. Kaidan ordered one, too, before turning back to her.

"Look," he said, "I'm sorry."

"Okay..." she said, clearly waiting for more. When Kaidan just raised an eyebrow at her, she glared at him.

"Listen," she said, practically shouting to be heard over the bass, "I'm busy. I'm in residency and I have a lot going on right now. I like you – well, I _liked_ you. You seemed...well..." She trailed off and turned to look across the dance floor.

"Yeah?" Kaidan asked, curious to see what she'd say. How _did _women view him? he wondered. He had never really known, except for with Shepard. He guessed that Shepard's reaction to him wasn't typical, anyhow. Shepard wasn't like most women. But then, he wasn't sure what Shepard thought of him anymore, anyway. It would be interesting to hear what some other woman had to say about him.

"You're the kind of guy that women typically keep," Lisa said, bluntly. Kaidan blinked at that.

"Keep?" _What the hell does that mean?_ he wondered.

"You're that..." she shrugged. "Type. I can just tell."

"That type?" he repeated.

"You're the kind of guy that's just...you know. The nice type."

"Is that...bad?" he asked.

She shrugged and flicked a speck of dust off of her skirt. "I don't know. I thought you were, you know, the kind of guy that's just really..." She shrugged. "But in reality..."

"Yeah?" he frowned.

"You're not around much," she finished.

"Oh," he said. "I'm assuming that would be a mark against me."

"Well, a woman does like a man to stick around," Lisa said, looking at him pointedly.

Kaidan winced. The words cut, much deeper than the doctor realized. He knew that she meant a woman liked a man who was not always gone on some assignment. Kaidan could appreciate that. His previous relationships – before Shepard, that is – had ended on those grounds exactly. Only a different meaning could be given to that observation, now. Kaidan realized that as far as Shepard was concerned, he hadn't stuck around. He'd walked away.

_But damn it_, he thought, frowning, _she left first. She was with Cerberus._

"Alenko?" Lisa asked. Kaidan looked to her. She handed him his drink. She had her own in her other hand. He took the drink and sipped it thoughtfully.

"Listen," she shrugged. "I don't know. You gonna be around, or should I just count last time off as a nice date and go back to having Katie set me up with every guy she can find who's still single on the Citadel?"

"I..." Kaidan looked at her, taking in her delicate face, petite build in that elegant dress and her snapping, angry green eyes. She was pretty, he thought. She really was. But even if he had found her particular style of pretty tempting, he found that he just couldn't quite bring himself to pretend. It wasn't fair to Lisa, he told himself. And, another part of him realized, if there was some reasonable explanation to what had happened on Horizon, then it wasn't fair to Shepard.

Kaidan sighed and shook his head. "I'm sorry, Lisa. You're... Some guys is going to..."

"Spare me the talk," she frowned. "I know. Really, I do. The way people move around anymore, it's a wonder that anyone finds each other."

"Yeah," Kaidan laughed, bitterly.

"And given how dangerous the galaxy is," Lisa added, "It's amazing anyone ever lives long enough to enjoy it."

Kaidan felt a lump filling his throat. "Yeah."

Lisa looked at him, and a sad smile came over her face. "We're going to have to get over them someday, you know," she said. "I mean, I'm just saying. I'm ready to move on, but I guess you're not."

"No, I..." Kaidan sighed. Feeling a sudden sense of relief mixed in with sudden sorrow. He was glad Lisa was understanding all of this, but he also just didn't know how to express, well any of it.

"It's...complicated," he finished at last.

"Moving on always is," Lisa said "But heck," she shrugged. "I guess I feel like I'm moving on already – without your help, you know? And I need to keep walking, so if you're not going to come with..." She shrugged.

"That good," Kaidan said, nodding at her. "That's...I'm glad for you."

"Yeah," she murmured, pursing her lips again.

"I just..." Kaidan broke off. "I thought I was there, too. But I guess I'm not. Or..." he shook his head. "After this last assignment, I ended up somewhere else entirely." He scowled and looked out across the room. "I'm not in any place to... I have more questions than answers right now."

"Well," Lisa said with a shrug and a scowl. "I wish you luck, Alenko. I just wish you hadn't kept me hanging for so long."

"I'm sorry," he said, even as he wondered how she could possibly have taken a month of no letters after a single date as something that warranted turning down other dates for. He hadn't seen it as anything serious, well, nothing more serious than a possible indication that he was getting over Shepard. But then again, Kaidan realized, he really didn't get women.

"Hey," Kaidan said, holding out a hand. "No hard feelings. I...wish you luck, too." Belatedly, he realized he was treating this more like he was talking to someone who had lost at a hand of poker, not to someone he might have been romantic with, but nothing came of it.

"Sure," Lisa said, shaking his hand. "Good luck, Alenko."

"You too," he replied, polishing off his drink and looking for the exit. "And thanks. I think I'm going to need all the luck I can get."


	48. Time and Ties

_Chapter 48_

_(time and ties)_

* * *

Liara looked down at the trading floor below, waiting.

So, the rumors were true, she thought. Shepard was back – and she was on her way to Illium.

The asari swallowed and stepped away from the window. Her people were in place. Shepard would be directed here as soon as the woman arrived. Liara only wished that she felt as calm as she wished to appear to the commander. Seeing Shepard again – it would be wonderful, and, no doubt, it would be hard, too.

So much had changed, Liara thought. She had believed that bringing Shepard back would somehow make everything go back to the way it had been. But when her plans had borne fruit, when news reached her that Cerberus had succeeded in their goal, she realized her mistake. Shepard wouldn't be coming back on the Normandy SR1 to pick Liara up and return to her hunt for Saren. She was in a new ship now, with a new crew, no doubt with a new mission.

And Liara also realized that "the way it had been" was a myth, after all. There was no perfect time in the past when everything had been simple and still. From the very start, everything had been moving, changing, so rapidly that Liara could scarcely believe it. Time passed so quickly on the Normandy, not at all like her research in the dig sites. In the world of archeology, history was as close to a solid state as time could ever be. Living among the short-lived humans, however, time was more like a rushing river.

The years since the Normandy's destruction had taught Liara a lot about the inevitable flow of time and what it did to shorter-lived species. They lived strangely, Liara thought, but she began to admire their fortitude. Shepard had accepted flux as a way of life, enjoying what moments she could before they were snatched away. Liara wondered if Shepard was still like that.

Liara also wondered if Shepard still possessed a sense of goodwill towards those in desperate circumstances. She didn't know if her own role in Shepard's reconstruction was known to the commander. Liara wasn't quite sure if she should tell of it. After all, it was a strange thing to say to an old friend: "I brought you back into an indentured life because I couldn't stand for you to be gone." Liara was still certain that Lieutenant Alenko would have been horrified had he known what she had done. But Shepard... Liara glanced down at the trading floor again, looking through the crowd once again.

Liara wasn't sure what Shepard would say if she knew. She wasn't sure if she wanted Shepard to know.

Just then, a call came in. With a glance at the holo, Liara bristled. _Him_ again. Well, so much for quiet reflections.

It was time to return to the present, she thought, sadly, time to return to the place where change had brought her.

* * *

"Alenko!"

Kaidan looked up just in time to avoid running right into Dean. He stepped aside to get out of the doorway to the Alliance locker room. Dean stepped aside as well. The man was dripping sweat, clearly coming from his workout. Kaidan shifted the bundle of his towel and workout clothes on his hip.

"You just finishing?" Dean asked him.

Kaidan nodded. "Yeah." He had taken his time working out, and had managed to kill a whole morning. This leave time was driving him crazy. Now that he was showered and dressed for the day, he had no idea what to do with himself for the afternoon.

"Hey," Dean said, frowning, "What happened the other night with you and Lisa?"

"Uh..." Kaidan frowned. "We...talked...and then decided not to go out again."

"You broke up with her?" Dean frowned at him. "Damn, man, you're cold, you know that?"

"Hey," Kaidan said, a little defensively. He steeped a little further out of the way to let a couple of guys past him into the lockers. "We went on _one_ date. One date in one month. It was nothing serious."

Dean raised his eyebrows. "Like I said, man – cold."

"Look," Kaidan said, now growing angry, "Not all of us are lucky enough to have a steady job on the Citadel and nice girl waiting on us, okay? My life is...complicated right now. I didn't think it was fair to drag Lisa into that."

Dean considered that, his friendly face falling in a frown. "Okay," he said at last. "You're right. It's none of my business." He shrugged, then added. "You gonna be okay?"

"Yeah, I'll be fine," Kaidan said. "How about Lisa? Is she okay?"

"I guess," Dean said. "She just said she was going home. I thought she was still with you, but then she said you'd left."

Kaidan grimaced, realizing that his hasty exit from the club had probably added further injury to the insult for Lisa. _This _is why he hated dating, he thought to himself. The fundamental rules of engagement for battle didn't seem to apply there. The simplest and most direct route was often the wrong one, and leaving oneself an exit strategy was inevitably a recipe for offending women. Of course, not leaving oneself a way out also made things messy. With Shepard, he thought he'd finally gotten the whole relationship thing figured out. At least Shepard had been on his side, navigating that minefield along with him. They'd even avoided dating, too, which only made things better. Only even there, Kaidan supposed he was mistaken, since everything with Shepard had since gone to hell.

Kaidan frowned. He really didn't want to be thinking about Shepard once again.

"Look, man," Dean said, he nodded down the hallway, then took a few steps away from the entrance to the locker room. Kaidan followed him a few steps, then folded his arms over his chest, his gear tucked into his armpit.

"I didn't want to...bring this up the other day when we were down in the Wards and all, but..." Dean looked around the hallway. "I'm worried about you, man."

"I appreciate that, but I'll be fine." Kaidan thought about what he'd considered looking up on the extranet that morning and reconsidered that statement. He shook his head. "I don't need another date, Dean. I just need some work to do. I don't do well on leave."

"That's not what I meant," Dean said. He frowned, then lowered his voice. "Look, I'm not trying to set you up. That's Katie's thing. I wanted to warn you..." He stopped and looked over his shoulder again.

"Warn me?" Kaidan asked, as confused by Dean's behavior as by the idea of needing any warnings from the man.

"I'm hearing rumors," Dean said, watching Kaidan closely for his reaction, "that your former commander is..._alive_."

Kaidan blinked. That was not what he was expecting to hear from Dean. "Shepard, you mean?" Kaidan asked, trying to keep his voice light.

"Yeah," Dean nodded. "And I don't mean rumors from the news. I heard this rumor from...Well, let's just say there are folks in the brass who think she might really be alive. And they also say," he looked around again, then spoke even more softly. "They also say she's working for Cerberus." Dean paused and frowned. "I just...I thought you should know, man."

Kaidan just stared. The absurdity of the situation struck him at once. The top brass hadn't bothered to tell him this, but Dean had. Kaidan immediately realized the risk Dean took in passing on this information, even if he had simply overheard it.

"What else do you know?" Kaidan asked, now wondering if he could get any more information from this unexpected source. "I mean, how did you get that much?"

Dean looked at Kaidan, taken aback. "You don't sound too surprised," he said, accusingly.

"Ah..." Kaidan couldn't find an answer to that.

"You already knew," Dean said, his eyes widening. "Shit man," he frowned. "Well, I should have remembered that you were a commander yourself. Of course you'd know. When did you find out?"

Kaidan remembered back to that moment on Horizon when he had learned the truth, then quickly shoved that memory aside. "Nothing official," he swiftly lied. "Rumors, like you said. How'd you hear about it?"

"The email systems," Dean told him.

"Email?"

"Yeah," Dean said, his voice low once more, "See, the thing is, Shepard's account was restricted from sending outgoing mail – I mean, she was listed as missing in action, right? Standard procedure, lock the account and archive it for the records."

"Of course," Kaidan murmured, his heart suddenly lifting a little. Of course it would be. And that explained why she had written to him from that merc account: she couldn't use her own mail. Only, he now wondered, why hadn't her email bounced back his message if the account was locked?

"The thing is though," Dean went on, answering Kaidan's unasked question, "And this is the really weird part – her account's been cleaned out."

"Cleaned out? What do you mean?"

"Just that - cleaned out. All her old files were deleted."

"By who?" Kaidan asked, alarm spreading through his chest. Whoever it was couldn't have found out _his_ mail – could they?

"Well, see, that's what me and my CO were trying to figure out. It looks like there's been activity on the account, but it's hard to tell what's going on. I think her messages were all forwarded, but I can't figure it out. Like, whatever system it is that's hacking into her account, it's top of the line, man. They're getting in and out of our systems before I can figure out where they came from and leaving without a trace. I only know her mail is gone because she should have had all those archives."

"And you think it's Cerberus," Kaidan said, frowning.

"Don't know anyone else who would know our protocols so well," Dean said, shaking his head. He looked over his shoulder. "I'm not supposed to know what Cerberus tech looks like, but I've seen it before. It's so like Alliance code you'd swear it was written by our guys, but it's a lot...sneakier. I think someone's been hacking Shepard's account remotely, uploading her files, then disappearing again."

"Haven't the brass locked down her account?" Kaidan wanted to know.

"Can't get it authorized," Dean said, rolling his eyes. "You know how it is. She's still listed as missing in action, so they aren't going to acknowledge anything different, even if it's pretty damn clear that something screwy is going on."

"Yeah," Kaidan murmured.

Well, that certainly gave him something to think about, Kaidan mused. He wondered if Shepard was doing this stealth forwarding – unlikely, given her knowledge of tech. She could manage simple systems alright, but she was no hacker. More likely, Cerberus was doing the dirty work. So what did that mean? Kaidan wondered. Had she authorized it, or was Cerberus actively monitoring her systems? More importantly, had she ever gotten _his _email? Maybe not, since she never had written him back. The idea of Cerberus getting hold of his words now suddenly made Kaidan feel a little ill. He also felt worried for Shepard's sake. If Cerberus had her accounts in lock down, how else might they be manipulating her? Maybe she was in more trouble than he had realized. He only hoped she could get herself out of it. After all, she had put herself into their hands in the first place, Kaidan thought, frowning.

Kaidan suddenly realized that his whole day was once again turning into a "wondering about Shepard day." He would like to put her behind him, but it seemed that every time he started to, some new piece of information would pop up and make him dwell on her all over again. But this last revelation had him curious. Clearly his answers lay with Cerberus, and since Shepard wasn't writing him back, he wanted to know why. Maybe, he thought, a plan forming in his mind, he'd be able to get some answers through Dean. He'd just have to be discreet in doing so.

"Hey," Kaidan said, glancing over his shoulder to make sure no one was listening. "Can you help me get access to Shepard's mail – from the inside?"

"Why man?" Dean frowned.

"She was my commander," Kaidan said, trying to make it sound causal. "I just want to know..."

_Anything? Everything?_

"...what she's up to," he finished.

"I dunno man," Dean said, doubtfully. "I mean, that would get me in big trouble. I'm already going to be in trouble if anyone knew I was telling you this. I just wanted you to know so you could be prepared when the shit hits the fan."

Kaidan stopped short at that. "What do you mean?"

"What do I mean?" Dean blinked at him. "The woman joined _terrorists_, man. That's a hanging crime, as they used to say – back when they still used rope. If they get hold of her, she'll be tried for treason."

Kaidan stared at him. He hadn't thought of that. Then again, he reminded himself, Anderson had known, and Council had re-instated Shepard as a Spectre. Even if she wasn't Alliance anymore, she was in the Council's good graces – a little, at least. But to the outside world, of course, and to the Alliance brass, what she had done was a crime.

"No one can blame you," Dean went on. "You didn't know that she was alive. But still, the best thing to do is to put some distance between yourself and her. Even if they don't catch her, you could get black-balled if you don't cut ties."

"Wait," Kaidan blinked. "What?"

"I mean, I'm just saying. You haven't said anything publicly, I know, because officially she's not back. The way you've stayed close to the Alliance, you sent the right signals, but you might want to discreetly let it be known to the brass that you're not with her."

"Not with her...?" Kaidan broke off, utterly stunned. He didn't know why he hadn't thought of it before, but of course that _was_ what would happen. His very career could be in jeopardy by his association with Shepard. He could be driven out of the Alliance if anyone thought he was with her – and with Cerberus.

But that wasn't why he'd walked away from Shepard, Kaidan thought wildly – not then, and not now. He was disgusted by the idea that people would think he'd disown Shepard for his _career_ of all things. Sure, his career mattered to him. He was an Alliance marine for life as far as he was concerned. But he'd walked away from her and Cerberus because of, well, _them._ She hadn't contacted him in _years_. Hearing Dean imply that he had distanced himself from Shepard for the sake of politics made him feel vaguely...dirty.

"Seriously, man," Dean was saying. "If Shepard's with Cerberus, then she's gone rogue. Didn't they send her to take down that rogue turian Spectre? Same thing is gonna happen to her, you just watch. They're going to have to send someone to bring her in."

Kaidan felt his throat constricting. That wouldn't happen, he told himself, not when she had the Council's approval. But then again, he thought, anything was possible.

"Anyhow," Dean shrugged. "Just saying. You'd better watch yourself. They're gonna witch-hunt her former crew if that happens, so you might as well make it clear where your loyalties lie."

"Dean," Kaidan said, his voice low and intense, "I have got to take a look at Shepard's email files. If what you say is true, then I need to know what I'm up against."

"I don't see how looking at her extranet mailbox is going to show that you're cutting ties," Dean frowned.

"Please? As a favor to me?"

Dean frowned at him, then shrugged. "I need help with a firewall that keeps getting breached," he said. "I'll see if I can get my CO to let you in to help me fix it and then I'll see what we can do."

"Thanks man," Kaidan said, shifting his gear to his left hand to shake Dean's hand with his right. "I appreciate it."

And, he thought, as he waved goodbye to Dean and walked away, maybe he'd be able to use this chance to get finally some answers about Shepard and Cerberus.


	49. Kahoku

_Chapter 49_

_(Kahoku)_

_Author's Note: I apologize in advance for the bad language at the end of this chapter. But every tech I know talks like this when things go south. You have been warned..._

* * *

Shepard walked into the office, wondering what kind of reception she would receive.

"Have you ever faced an asari commando unit before?" The speaker's voice, low and cold, floated to Shepard across the room. "Few humans have. I'll make it simple: either you pay me, or I flay you alive – with my mind."

Shepard raised her eyebrows. Was that really...

"_Liara_?"

"Shepard!" The asari turned, her eyes widening in delight. "Nyxseris, hold my calls." Liara crossed to Shepard, drew her into an embrace. "Shepard," she whispered.

Shepard started a bit, then relaxed into Liara's arms. She certainly hadn't expected this reaction. But it was nice that someone seemed so glad to see her back. Even Tali and Garrus hadn't been quite this welcoming.

"My sources said you were alive," Liara said, smiling brightly. "It's very good to see you."

"You have sources now?" Shepard asked, half laughing. "Since when do you have 'sources,' Liara?"

"Since, well, a little over a year ago," Liara said, a little sadly. The asari explained what the last two years had brought for her: work as an information dealer and a strange vendetta against the Shadow Broker that she seemed reluctant to explain. As she spoke, Shepard began to grow uneasy.

"This really doesn't sound like you, Liara," she said at last. "Why don't you join me? Search for the Shadow Broker from the Normandy. I'll do what I can to protect you."

"I'm sorry, Shepard," Liara said, shaking her head, "but the galaxy doesn't work that way. For a start, your ship is, no doubt, monitored by Cerberus."

Shepard gave a wry smile of agreement.

"I need room to work," Liara continued. "For that, I need to be here. I'll help you in any way I can. I imagine that information is something you need right now."

"I do," Shepard agreed. "I could use information on Cerberus. But," she added, seeing Liara's strained smile falter, "I guess you've got your hands full with one dangerous information broker right now. I won't ask you to go poking around in the Illusive Man's files."

"Yes," Liara said, looking away with a frown.

"Well then," Shepard said, "I could use information on these contacts. I need to find these people – see if they'll join my team." Shepard fired up her omnitool and gave Liara the information. The asari quickly told Shepard what she needed to know. Shepard thanked her, was about to close her omnitool, then she paused, looking at one folder in particular.

"Liara," Shepard said, slowly. "Could you... May I ask a personal favor of you?"

"Of course," Liara said. "How can I help you?"

Shepard blinked at her.

"'Of course'?" she asked, her voice a little sad. "Just 'of course.' You don't even know what I'm going to ask, Liara."

Liara smiled, though it didn't quite reach her eyes. "Whatever I can do for you, Shepard, I'll do it."

Shepard shook her head. "Thank you, Liara. You don't know how much that means to me right now. Look, I need you to get a message to Kaidan. Cerberus blocked my accounts."

"They have?" Liara said, her eyes growing troubled.

"Yeah," Shepard said with a grimace. "So if you could forward a message for me, I'd appreciate it. I hate to ask you..."

Shepard broke off at once. She suddenly realized her mistake in bringing Liara into this. Kaidan was something of a sore subject between them – well, everything related to Shepard's rejection of Liara's affection was a sore subject between them. Shepard debated with herself for a moment, considering telling Liara to forget the whole thing. It wasn't fair to Liara, she told herself, to use the asari as a messenger. And yet, Shepard wanted to contact Kaidan too badly not to use whatever means she could. _You're being selfish_, Shepard thought to was - she knew it. But even so, she fired up her omnitool.

"I wish I'd had time to come up with something...better," she murmured as she glanced through her many half-finished letters. She frowned, finding each more unsuitable than the last. She decided to make something up fresh.

"Got a datapad?" she asked. Liara nodded and handed her one. Shepard took it with a murmured thanks, then quickly typed:

_Dear Kaidan,_

_I've found a way to get a message to you though a mutual friend. My accounts are being monitored and I have been blocked from sending you a reply. Please keep yourself safe and stay far away from Cerberus. I will try to contact you again later._

_-Shepard_

Briefly, she considered adding a more personal message, but as the letter would be going through Liara, she thought better of it. She simply added a brief postscript:

_P.S. - I tried to contact you before, but could not. Please believe that._

Shepard made a face at her completely inadequate words, then handed the datapad to Liara. The asari took it without a glance.

"I'll try and find him," Liara said.

"You should just be able to send it to his account," Shepard told her. "I think his account is open – just not to me."

Liara frowned at her. "Are you alright, Shepard?" she asked, looking now quite worried.

"As well as I can be under Cerberus's thumb," Shepard replied with a weary sigh. "But I'm well enough, thank you."

Liara's lower lip seemed to quiver for a moment, but then that worried expression was gone. "Very well, Shepard." She held out the datapad to her waiting assistant.

"Nyxseris," Liara said, "would you see this taken care of immediately?"

"Of course, Dr. T'Soni," the asari purred, taking it at once. "Immediately." The secretary turned and left the room, leaving Shepard and Liara alone.

"Are you alright, Liara?" Shepard asked at once.

"As you said, Shepard," Liara replied, raising an eyebrow. "I am well enough. Thank you for asking."

"Well," Shepard said, now feeling a little awkward. "Thank _you_. When they told me you were here, I knew I could trust you with this. You're one of the few people I still do trust."

Liara blanched at that, though why, Shepard could not imagine.

"Yes," the asari said, standing. "Well, come back any time. You now know where to find me."

* * *

"There you are," Kaidan said, standing to let Dean take his chair at the desk. "That ought to do it."

"Damn," Dean shook his head as he looked at the screen. "I would never have seen that bug. That code is ancient. What was that? An early twenty-first century artifact or something?"

"You'd be surprised the things that you find in old systems," Kaidan told him. "I've been spending so much time in the colony systems that I've realized that what I took for granted in security with the Alliance is really top-of-the-line."

"Yeah, how was your time out in the colonies, man?" Dean asked, frowning. "Lisa said something about how you had a bad time of it."

"Oh, she did?" Kaidan rubbed the back of his neck. "I didn't realize she'd remember that."

"She's a nice girl, man," Dean said, pointedly.

"Yeah," Kaidan replied, letting out a sigh.

_Yeah_, he thought, _she was_. Aside from the fact that she lacked appreciation for music and a sense of irony, Lisa was exactly the kind of girl that most guys liked: pretty, smart, nice, and interested. A part of him just wished he could move on with a girl like her. It would be a hell of a lot easier than this endless wondering about Shepard.

But Kaidan still felt this lingering sense of...loyalty to Shepard. It was a complicated loyaty, he thought with a grimace. It was a feeling of loyalty to her as his old CO, his old friend, and as his one-time lover. And he didn't need a counselor to tell him that there was a healthy dose of survivor's guilt thrown in there as well, holding him back from moving on. Once again, Kaidan regretted that he wasn't in any place to move beyond that mess – even with a nice girl like Lisa.

"Lisa is great," Kaidan told Dean. "But..."

"But it's none of my business," Dean said, holding his hands up, "I get it. Alright," he looked over his shoulder to endure the small office they were in was empty. "Let's get you in and out of the email systems fast."

Dean brought up his administrative account, logged in, and by the time Kaidan had pulled a second chair over, the man was in Shepard's account. As expected, it was empty.

"Can you see what activity has been going on?" Kaidan asked.

"There's not much to see," Dean shook his head. "Look." He found the account log and opened it.

_Account locked, code 435.  
__No activity in 822 days._

"Has it really been that long?" Kaidan murmured.

"Huh?" Dean turned to him.

"Nothing," Kaidan shook his head. "Anyway, that isn't right. She got mail since that time."

"She did?" Dean frowned. "How do you know?"

"Uh..." Kaidan cursed his unthinking comment. "A glitch. A message got sent to all the SR1 crew. Her name was on the recipients list." He hated lying, but he couldn't think of any other way than to cover for his mistake.

"It probably bounced then," Dean said.

This time, Kaidan refrained from pointing out that her emails had not, in fact, bounced back the sent mail. There was no way to mention that without also admitting that he had been to one to send her mail.

"Anyhow," Dean continued "You can see that all her files are gone."

"That's strange," Kaidan said. "If it was Cerberus and they got into her accounts, then why didn't they just copy them?"

"Dunno," Dean shrugged. "Maybe they didn't think anyone would be checking up on a dead woman?"

"Only if she was alive," Kaidan pointed out, "They had to know someone was going to check on her accounts eventually."

"Not necessarily," Dean said. "I mean, the only reason I found out was because I saw this weird glitch that my emails were hanging up a little. I checked it out and found that every time I sent a mail, this other program started running. Anyhow, I quarantined the program and fed it emails and the damn thing started forwarding a copies out to this zombie bot network. Never did get to the end of that rabbit hole."

"Emails were getting forwarded from your accounts?" Kaidan asked.

"They were," Dean said, grumpily. "I only just caught it. Anyhow, I started doing a search on the VI program that did it and I found this rogue Alliance VI program had hacked my account and was doing the forwarding. I did a search to see what other accounts it was monitoring."

"And?"

"It had hacked every damn tech in the place," Dean muttered. "Was sharing data, passing things off tag-team like with another VI program. Took me a while to track that one down, but I eventually found it. The second VI was helping with the monitoring, but when I checked it's logs, I also found this..."

Dean tapped at the holographic display. "Here," he pointed to the screen. Kaidan looked at the log.

_User AVI-lab6-bank4-cpu497 accepted.  
__Argus uploaded. 0300-03-02-2183  
__Finding mail target...  
__Mail account found.  
__Data mine in progress...  
__Data mine complete.  
__New file found.  
__Forwarding to 900-566-498-300-909.  
__Forwarded._

The forwarding repeated several times, then the log concluded with:

_Program detected by Alliance protocols.  
__Argus deleted._

"What's that user?" Kaidan asked, pointing at the words AVI-lab6-bank4-cpu497. "Is that the VI?"

"The second VI, yeah," Dean nodded.

"That forwarding address is the network you mentioned then?"

"Yeah," Dean said. "It's a dummy machine, I think. I couldn't trace it worth crap. Whole thing's encrypted. Without knowing their code, I can't get squat."

"That code looks almost like Alliance protocols."

"Yeah," Dean said. "The tech is like ours, just shifted, you know? So that's why I'm thinking Cerberus."

"And they used the name 'Argus,'" Kaidan noted.

"Huh?"

"Argus," Kaidan said, pointing at the word. "A hundred-eyed giant that was a herd-keeper for the gods." When he caught Dean staring, Kaidan shrugged. "I read a lot as a kid. Not much else to do where I grew up."

"What does that have to do with Cerberus?" Dean wanted to know.

"Cerberus is a monster from Greek mythology," Kaidan said, "So is Argus."

"Oh, damn," Dean said, turning to the screen. "I didn't know that. I just watch anime, man. I think I'll have to read up on that Greek stuff. I bet – shit. There's probably dozens of programs I might have caught that way."

"Well, if they're being stupid and naming all their projects after Greek myths like that, then yeah," Kaidan said. "Did you run a scan for anything else that those VI programs were doing?"

"Of course," Dean said with a scowl. "I may not know classic lit, but I'm not a newb, man."

"Right," Kaidan said. "So, no matches?"

"I found a few," Dean said, tapping on the keyboard, "Mostly they were just watching email of the tech crew and the top brass. Of course, with them it's hard to tell. Seriously, its scary, man that an admiral can be that dumb. It's like, if it says "hot asari" on it, they're gonna open it." He rolled his eyes. "But even there, the VIs weren't forwarding anything. Just watching."

"Only forwarding Shepard's stuff, huh?" Kaidan frowned. He looked at the screen for a moment, then suddenly, out of the blue, a thought came to him.

"Oh my God," he murmured. He pulled up his omnitool at once.

"What, man?" Dean asked.

"It was a VI," Kaidan said, finding the log at once. "I should have realized, but I thought it was Alliance. I was too pissed off to notice. I thought it was _my _fault..."

"What are you talking about?" Dean said, leaning over Kaidan's 'tool now.

"This," Kaidan said.

_Offline.  
Offline.  
Offline.  
Ping from AVI-lab6-bank4-cpu497.  
User authorized.  
Patch accepted.  
Downloading patch.  
Patch downloaded.  
Initializing installation.  
Installation complete.  
Calibrating defense towers.  
Please wait.  
Defense towers online.  
Calibrating Link.756/Horizon.  
Please wait.  
Link.756/Horizon online.  
All systems online.  
Online.  
Online. _

"What the hell is that?" Dean asked.

"It's the same VI," Kaidan said, his heart suddenly feeling like it was pounding in his throat. "It's the same damn VI that gave me that link."

"Or it was the same person hacking that VI," Dean pointed out. "But yeah, that's my VI on your 'tool. Where did that come from, man?"

"Classified," Kaidan told him. "You never saw this, got it?"

"Hey, if you're going to pull that superior officer crap now..."

"I'm serious, Dean," Kaidan said, giving him a solemn look. "This is classified. Besides, you don't want to know."

Dean scowled. "Can I at least ask _what_ it is? It looks like a patch."

Kaidan nodded. "It is a patch. And before you ask, no, I'm not going to tell you what to."

"So where did it come from?" Dean asked.

_It sure as hell didn't come from the collector_s, Kaidan thought. Aloud he said, "Can't say. I'm not even sure." Though he had a sudden suspicion.

"Who authorized the installation of those VI programs?" he asked Dean.

"Not sure," Dean said. "Whoever was the systems administrator at the time, probably. These VI programs have clearly been hacked since then."

"Or they were installed with the hack embedded," Kaidan pointed out. "See who uploaded them."

"Okay," Dean shrugged. "I mean, some of my bosses have been pretty damn stupid, but they're not so dumb that they'd miss a hacked VI in the installation process. Heh," he smirked. "At least I hope not."

"Might not have been an accident," Kaidan said.

"Right," Dean frowned. "I really hope that's not the case. Okay, let me see..."

Kaidan watched the screen over Dean's shoulder, then his eyes widened in amazement.

"Oh my God," Kaidan breathed. "That was authorized by..."

_K. Kahoku._

"Kahoku?" Dean frowned. "Don't know him - or her, maybe. Can't tell with our systems. Anyhow, must have been before my time. Wait, no," he frowned and sat forward. "Those VIs were uploaded those only a year ago. I didn't... Who the hell is this guy?" He began tapping furiously at the keyboard.

"He's dead," Kaidan said, softly.

Dean didn't appear to hear him. "Shit!" he cried. He was reading a profile on Kahoku, then threw up his hands.

"Holy shit!" he cried. "This guy is a fucking admiral! Top level security code, too. Shit! I didn't even _think _to look at who installed those programs. I just thought they'd been hacked from outside." He turned to Kaidan. "Well, damn. That explains a lot. Some admiral is watching Shepard's programs. Wish they'd told me, but I guess that was classified."

"Yeah," Kaidan murmured. He was still staring at the screen in amazement.

"So you know that guy?" Dean asked, nodding at the screen.

"Yeah," Kaidan said, slowly. "I knew him."

"Knew him?" Dean repeated. "So he's... Wait. Don't tell me this guy is actually - _dead_?"

Kaidan didn't say anything.

"But this says he's alive," Dean said, frowning at the screen. "Wait – no. It says he's dead. What the fuck? But his account it still fully authorized. What the _fuck_? Who did that?"

As Dean scowled and swore at the screen, Kaidan thought back to the moment he'd last seen Admiral Kahoku – or rather, the last time he'd seen the man's body. Shepard had turned the admiral over onto his back, swallowed hard, and closed the man's eyes. She'd been still so long, Kaidan had to pull her away. As he did so, she had muttered in Kaidan's ear:

"_Cerberus has a lot to answer for."_

And yet now she was working with them, he thought. Kaidan couldn't believe it. But all this made one thing abundantly clear to him: Cerberus was behind that hacked VI, behind the monitoring systems, and, it seemed, behind the downloaded patch to the GARDIAN systems. And that meant, Kaidan realized, his stomach knotting, Cerberus must have known about the attack on Horizon before the Collectors had even gotten there.

Well, damn, Kaidan thought. That explained a lot. He had wondered who had sent a rescue team if not the Alliance. It couldn't possibly have been Cerberus - could it?

But why? he wondered. Why would they deliberately allow the Collectors to attack Horizon and then try to save the colony? The initial part sounded like Cerberus: let innocents die to watch the slaughter. But why try to save the colony afterward? Why send the patch during the attack in order to activate the towers? Why, for that matter, send Shepard on a rescue mission?

"She sent that patch," Kaidan murmured, realization dawning. _Shepard _had sent the patch. It had to be. There was no extranet connection prior to the attack. Then her ship had arrived in orbit – the only ship to arrive other than the Collectors – and suddenly, miraculously, the GARDIAN had come online and communications with the extranet had been established.

Kaidan felt like kicking himself. He'd been so angry about Shepard that he hadn't seen that bizarre coincidence for what it was. But now, at least, one mystery about Horizon seemed clear: the GARDIAN system had been hampered by faulty tech, then revived at will by Cerberus.

Had the ship simply come to Horizon with the patch in hand? Kaidan wondered. It was possible they had simply found it in the Alliance data bases and brought it in order to save the colony. But far more likely was the possibility that Cerberus been withholding it somehow to deliberately put the colony at risk.

Kaidan felt suddenly sick. Cerberus had the patch, which meant they had access to the systems from the start. But those lasers had been sent from Alliance command – supposedly packed in a secure docking hangar and sent without being opened until they reached Kaidan at the end destination. He'd overseen every step of the installation. So if the GARDIAN systems had a critical patch missing, then they'd been sent like that – sent without being able to fire, sent deliberately crippled so that Horizon would be at risk.

And _that _meant, Kaidan suddenly realized, that the rabbit hole led them right back here to the Citadel.

Kaidan suddenly felt cold and his skin broke out into goose-flesh. Horizon had been set up right from the beginning, set up from people sitting right here on the Citadel. Or rather, it was set up by Cerberus and implemented by their operatives here on the Citadel. Kaidan now wondered if Horizon was the first such incident of this kind, or if he'd been sent faulty towers before, only to have them patched without his realizing it once Cerberus decided the Collectors weren't likely to attack those earlier colonies.

Maybe, he realized suddenly, they'd been waiting to send in Shepard. If Horizon had the GARDIAN lasers up, he might have defended the colony before Shepard ever arrived. So maybe, Kaidan thought, maybe Cerberus withheld the codes long enough for her to arrive.

But _why_? he wondered again. He could see a number of reasons that watching the Collectors at work would be useful from a brutal, scientific point of view. Though, now that he came to think of it, how had Shepard managed to avoid the seeker swarms? Kaidan frowned. He couldn't believe he hadn't bothered to ask her that. But then, there were so many things he hadn't bothered to ask her, like, how much did she know about the attack beforehand, and for how long? Had she authorized this little bait-and-switch, or was that part of an order than came down from above her? Did she even know about it? He wanted to believe that Shepard, of all people, would never condone putting a colony at risk just to see the result of an attack. That sounded more like Cerberus of the old days, not Shepard. So perhaps she was just as in the dark about Cerberus's actions that day as he had been.

Either way, Kaidan realized, he needed more answers, and he also realized he needed to be careful. The same people who had killed Kahoku were clearly still in the system somewhere, pulling strings and using Alliance protocols to do it. But how many of them there were, at what rank, and to what degree they had infiltrated the Alliance, he had no idea.

"Dean," Kaidan said, coming out of his daze and turning to his friend. "Check your systems for that name: Kahoku."

"You gonna tell me what's going on?" Dean asked him.

"No," Kaidan said. "The less you know at this point, the better, believe me. In fact," He frowned. "You might even want to think about getting transferred."

"What?" Dean blinked at him. "Seriously?"

"Seriously, Dean," Kaidan said. "What we just found here is dangerous. Just check the name and then let's get the hell out of here."

"Fine," Dean muttered. "Hell, I didn't realize trying to warn you about Shepard and Cerberus would be so sticky. I just police the systems, keep out the porn mail, and do what the superior officer says. A big day for me is when I find some underage kid trying to make a fake ID account so he can get into a strip club."

As Dean complained, the results of his search appeared on the screen. The two men read down the list at the same time. Dean exploded. Kaidan just shook his head.

"Fuckers!" Dean cried.

"Figures," Kaidan muttered.

"Admiral Kahoku" had apparently authorized the implementing of Argus2 monitoring systems into every major Alliance database. There were a few other authorizations, too, but the list was only a few lines long.

"Holy shit!" Dean hissed. "I thought I was keeping the system clean! They've got eyes everywhere now, man. Shit! Is this Cerberus?"

"I think so," Kaidan said quietly.

"How the _hell_ did they keep an dead admiral's account active without us noticing?" Dean asked, waving a hand at the computer. "Shit. You'd think someone would have noticed something like that."

"Who would have noticed?" Kaidan asked. "Do you go in manually and check to make sure all the records are correct?"

"Naw, man," Dean said, shaking his head, "We have VI programs for that kind of thing." He stared at the screen a moment, then closed his eyes. "VI programs. Fuckin' _VI_ programs. Oh my _God!_"

"Settle down," Kaidan told him. "Just see if you can get any more information on what that Argus2 program is doing."

"Alright, you assholes," Dean scowled at the computer. "Give me your shitty little secrets." He typed at the keyboard furiously, then threw his hands up in the air.

"Authorization code? What the fuck, man?"

"Damn," Kaidan frowned. "It could be anything. What else does it say "Kahoku" authorized?"

"Not much," Dean muttered, scanning the screen. Then he stopped short. "Oh, shit."

"What?" Kaidan leaned over his shoulder.

"There," Dean pointed. Kaidan looked, then shrugged.

"What?" he asked. "That means nothing to me."

"Code 688?" Dean asked, looking at him expectantly. "A six double-eighter? 'Shit eighty-eight'? You seriously don't know what that is?"

"Should I?" Kaidan asked.

"I guess if you're not a tech here you wouldn't know the codes," Dean said. "It's when a high-up in the brass gets full access to a soldier's accounts. It's code for when some poor bastard has seriously pissed someone off."

"So whose accounts is "Kahoku" monitoring?" Kaidan asked him.

Dean looked at the screen, then turned to Kaidan, his eyes wide.

"Yours, man."

"What?" Kaidan frowned at him. "Let me see that." He leaned over the screen and read the log. He didn't know it was possible to feel any more uncomfortable than he already was, but what he read there made his skin crawl.

_Code 688 requested by K. Kahoku.  
__Password sent.  
__Password accepted.  
__Finding mail targets...  
__K. Alenko found.  
__D. Anderson found.  
__S. Hackett found.  
__All accounts found._

"Shit, man. That's..." Dean sputtered. "That's _Hackett_ they're watching. That's a fucking _admiral_."

"And a councilor," Kaidan added.

"And a _councilor_!" Dean cried. "Though," he added with a wry, one-shouldered shrug, "I don't know if he still uses his Alliance account since he moved on to the Council. Though if these fuckers can hack us, they can probably hack the Council's mail. Their techs are lousy. Bunch of antiquated turians with sticks up their asses. Shit, man. I can't believe they screwed me like this."

"Looks like "Kahoku" didn't authorize much though," Kaidan said, looking at the brief logs. "He only did a half a dozen hacks in over two years time."

"Yeah," Dean agreed. "Looks like someone used that account to dump things into the system, then left the programs to run themselves. These VI programs have been carrying intel out the back door. It's like, I only just found the back door. I had no idea the _front_ door was through an _admiral_. How the hell did they get his codes?"

"I can guess," Kaidan said, darkly.

Curious, Kaidan checked the date that "Kahoku" had authorized the monitoring of his account. It was from a little over a month ago. Kaidan checked the date against his own email records. What he saw both unnerved him and yet, didn't surprise him. The date his mail started being monitored was the day after he'd received the rachni data in an email from Shepard.

Kaidan shook his head. Well, he wondered what Cerberus would do about that. Apparently, they'd decided to monitor those receiving her mail as well as the one who sent it.

"Shit!" Dean was saying, shaking his head. "How come no one _saw_ this? How come _I_ didn't see it?"

"You're seeing it now," Kaidan said.

"Damn it!" Dean said, scowling, "This is _my_ system you hacked, you fuckers!"

"You just started investigating this, right?" Kaidan said. "You said it yourself: VI programs usually run all this stuff for you – those were Alliance VIs too."

"Yeah," Dean said, waving a hand at the computer. "But I don't let VI programs go rogue. I'm better than that. Damn it!" He turned back to the screen. "Why didn't I see it?"

"It was hiding in plain sight," Kaidan told him. "And they had admiralty authorization. Of course it wouldn't show up on your systems. Unless you go poking around actually looking for Kahoku's name, you're not going to see what he was doing."

"Yeah," Dean said glumly, "And no one would be looking for Kahoku's name in the system 'cause he's dead."

"Right," Kaidan nodded. "He's dead, so no one asked about his account, and since his account has such high-level clearance, the system didn't bother to tell anyone what that account had been doing."

"His account is a fucking free hall pass," Dean growled, his eyes narrowing. "You're right: an admiral monitoring a few accounts is nothing unusual. I might have even seen this and looked right over it. I sure as hell would have noticed something if I'd realized that an admiral was watching _you_ though, man. I would have told you about that_,_ for sure. Geez."

"Yeah," Kaidan muttered.

And right there, Kaidan thought, he found that he trusted Dean. The guy had been a friend for years and was just too open in his disgust for Kaidan to believe him capable of deceit. Dean seemed to take this all as a personal affront that someone had hacked his systems on his watch. Kaidan simply couldn't believe that the guy had done said hacking and was pretending otherwise. So Kaidan could count Dean on his side. And as for the other person Kaidan was going to have to trust...

"This is messed up," Dean said, shaking his head. "I am so telling my CO, right now." He began to pull away from the desk.

"No," Kaidan told him, his tone sharp. "Don't."

"Why not, man?" Dean frowned at him.

"We don't know who's in on this," Kaidan told him. "I don't think you were."

"Shit no, man!" Dean said, obviously offended.

"Well," Kaidan shrugged. "Like I said, I didn't think so."

"Well, I sure as hell hope _you're_ not with them," Dean replied, scowling at him.

"No," Kaidan shook his head. "But anyone else..."

Dean shivered and rolled his shoulders back. "Oh, damn man. Now see, that's just going to creep me out. Now I'm going to be all...wondering..."

"Alright," Kaidan said. "I need to save as much of this as I can." He fired up his omnitool. "Give me access," he told Dean. "I need to download these logs and then let's get ourselves to Anderson's office."

"The _councilor_?" Dean gaped at him.

"He needs to know," Kaidan said. "If this is Cerberus, he needs to know."

"Yeah man," Dean said, slowly, "but what if he's in on it, too?"

Kaidan shook his head. "He's not," he said. "He's someone I trust. But if he _is _in on it..." Kaidan paused, his brows drawing together in worry.

"If he is," he said, "then we're all screwed."


	50. Tags

_Chapter 50_

_(tags)_

_Author's Note: __I am trying to keep this all as canon as possible, but with the caveat that future DLCs and future books may throw my plans and plotting off the mark. I write my best guess based on what I know so far. And yes, I did read ME:Redemption, though I thought it didn't give the reader very much to go on. Still, it was a fun story._

_I wrote this chapter long before the Liara DLC had Liara giving Shepard her tags. So I guessed right, even if the timing was a little off. I REALLY hope I'm guessing right in my Kaidan supposing. I would be beyond happy if it turned out he really was just on the Citadel, pining for Shepard all this time._

* * *

"So?" Dean asked, leaning forward eagerly as Kaidan sat down. "How did it go?"

"Well enough," Kaidan replied, looking quickly around the bar to make sure no one was within earshot. "In the end, I think it was best you didn't come after all. Anderson doesn't know your name, and that's probably best. I don't think he's in on it, but still..." He broke off suddenly as an asari waitress began walking toward their table. The alien asked for their order; Kaidan ordered some food, Dean a stiff drink. They both waited until she had walked off again into the nearly-empty bar before Dean turned to Kaidan and said, "But you don't know that."

"I don't know that," Kaidan admitted. "I'll take my chances with Anderson, but I don't want to put you at risk, too."

Dean frowned at that. "Doesn't seem right, man, me dragging you in to all this, then leaving you to take the fall like that."

"I think it was me dragging _you _in, Dean. No, really," Kaidan insisted when Dean waved a hand at him dismissively. "And I'm sorry for that."

"Sort of wish I had just let the whole thing slide," Dean muttered, looking down at the table in disgust.

"I don't," Kaidan said firmly. "I've had nothing but questions for two years now. I'm finally in a place where I can get some answers. Heh," he added with a rueful smile, "I'm finally in a place where I can _deal_ with the answers." He shook his head as if to clear it and shrugged. "I'll be fine," he assured his friend.

Dean still looked uncertain. "So Anderson didn't know anything about it?" he asked.

"He seemed completely shocked," Kaidan told him, "for Anderson, that is."

"What does that mean?"

"Anderson is hard to read," Kaidan replied. "Comes with being a captain – and a Councilor, I guess. I don't think he surprised to hear that Cerberus was in the system, but he sure was angry when he found out about the monitoring program on his email."

"So..." Dean prompted, "What's he going to do about it?"

"Well," Kaidan said, "he advised me to tell my contact to change jobs at once. Didn't ask who you were, though, and I didn't say."

"Dang it," Dean scowled. "Katie isn't going to like me leaving the Citadel."

"Just marry her and move to Earth," Kaidan said with a shrug.

Dean made a sound like he was choking. "_Marry_...? What?"

"You like her, don't you?"

"I love her," Dean said. He then seemed startled by that admission. "Yeah, I do. But..."

"But what?" Kaidan asked, his dark brows drawing together. "You love her. You have nothing standing in your way. She can finish her residency somewhere else and you can get another job. Hell, Dean, if we all had it so easy, we'd all be sitting back on Earth, paired up two by two and making all the other races sick with envy."

"Hey," Dean frowned. "Marriage isn't sunshine and bunnies, man. I mean – it's hard. Or so I've heard."

"I've heard that too," Kaidan replied. "But it's got to be a hell of a lot better than regret."

Dean considered that. "This about that girl you lost, man?" he asked, not quite meeting Kaidan's eyes.

Kaidan knew he meant Ashley, but he was thinking of Shepard when he said, "This is about you, Dean. Don't hold yourself back waiting for everything to suddenly turn up perfect. If you two are actually together, then, hell," He waved a hand, "Just stick together."

Dean opened his mouth like he was about to say something, but just then the waitress returned with their order, neatly ending that uncomfortable line of conversation. Kaidan waited until she had gone again, then said, "Just get off the Citadel, Dean. You'd probably be better off if you got a job with a private company than asked for a transfer."

"Ugh," Dean sighed. "I _knew_ you were going to say that. Alright. I guess a bunch of suits won't be that different than admirals. Might even find a place with a better budget."

"You're a good tech," Kaidan told him. "I'm sure you'll find something. And I by the way, I ah...I sent you a wedding present already. A few credits to help with the move," he explained when Dean looked at him questioningly. "Since I got you into this mess, you know."

Dean blinked at him. "Shit man, you didn't need to do that."

"Just take it, Dean," Kaidan said.

"So what about you?" Dean nodded at him. "You gonna be okay?"

"I think so," Kaidan said. "Anderson wants me to stay here on the Citadel in a new position. My official title will be 'Alliance Liaison to the Human Councilor'," Kaidan smirked at his plate. "My real job will be a little more – open ended than that."

"You're going to be a _secretary_?" Dean said, his brow furrowing.

"Yeah," Kaidan said with a dry laugh. "But obviously, that's not really what I'll be doing."

"You're going to be cleaning up the Alliance computer systems," Dean added.

"If I can," Kaidan nodded.

That wasn't all, of course, Kaidan thought as he took a bite of pasta. Anderson had promised Kaidan access to some of the Alliance's sealed files. _That _was what Kaidan was willing to take this new job for, to take this risk for. His own reports on the Normandy attack had been locked away as classified, along with a whole host of Alliance intel on Cerberus, the Normandy crash, and the missing colonies. Kaidan suspected it was all related somehow. Though Anderson had been hesitant to promise him everything, Kaidan figured whatever he could get his hands on was a good place to start. Anderson had seemed quite rattled by Kaidan's discovery of Cerberus' hacking and had implied to Kaidan that the only person he trusted to give this information to was Kaidan himself. In return, Kaidan had agreed to poke around the Alliance systems and see how deep Cerberus' spying went.

"So you're just going to sit on the Citadel and mess with Cerberus's monitoring systems?" Dean gaped at him. "Shit, man. That's like poking a sleeping tiger."

"Or a sleeping dog," Kaidan laughed. "Hopefully with three heads, Cerberus be too busy to notice me if I sneak around back. Of course," he added, "that dog had a snake for a tail, didn't it?"

"What the hell are you talking about, man?" Dean asked.

"Myths," Kaidan replied with a shrug. "Look, just get yourself off the Citadel, Dean. And don't worry about me. Cerberus is going to have a hard time taking me out if I'm right under Anderson's nose."

"Unless Anderson is in on it," Dean pointed out.

"Like I said," Kaidan replied. "If he is, then I'm already in trouble. But truly, Dean, I trust him. I know he's been keeping things from me, but he's always been up front about his reasons why. Most of all, he always stood up for Shepard."

And that was the bulk of why Kaidan trusted the man right there. He knew it was perhaps a gamble to trust anyone at this point, but he did trust the councilor. Anderson had been proactive about the colonies, but wary of Cerberus; he had defended Shepard, but kept her dealings secret from the public. While Kaidan hated being on the receiving end of Anderson's secrecy for so long, he felt that the man had made the right call in every situation Anderson had told him about.

In retrospect, Kaidan thought, he only wished _he_ could have acted more like Anderson had. Anderson, apparently, had met with Shepard in a respectful, adult like manner, then told her that he hoped her association with Cerberus would be short-lived and offered to help her from afar as best he could. Anderson's behavior towards the entire situation was both cautious and reasonable. Whereas, when Kaidan had met with Shepard, he had behaved like a jilted lover, with all the attendant irrational shouting.

"Look," Kaidan told Dean, "I feel like someone who was really trying to pull the wool over my eyes wouldn't be as apologetic about keeping secrets as Anderson is." He shrugged. "He's the only person left that I really can trust. And he's the only one with access to the answers I need, so I'll take my chances."

Dean frowned at that. "This is more than just Cerberus, man," he observed. "You aren't taking a desk job like that just to poke around the Alliance databases on Anderson's say so. This is personal, isn't it?"

Kaidan looked down at his food and took another bite. He considered his answer carefully before he replied, "Yeah. It is. Shepard was my CO. I followed her on the most dangerous mission I've ever been on. When she died, it was like the Alliance wanted to forget she ever existed. Then she shows up with Cerberus and everyone's pretending she's still gone. I want to know why."

"Well hell," Dean said, making a face, "Given what the brass has been saying about her, I'm not surprised she joined Cerberus. You were gone for the worst of it, man, but they smeared her in the press."

"I heard enough," Kaidan replied. He didn't like what had been said, but he also knew Shepard. She'd heard a lot of speculation thrown around about her character in the past and it hadn't caused her to loose faith in the brass. He couldn't imagine what could have turned the war hero of Elysium against the Alliance now.

"Well," Dean said, finishing his drink. "I guess I'd better go give my notice – and start looking for a job. Wonder where I should go."

"Vancouver is nice this time of year," Kaidan suggested helpfully.

"It rains there, man," Dean frowned.

"It's just rain," Kaidan shrugged.

"Yeah," Dean said. "Okay. Well, I guess this is...goodbye, for now."

"For now," Kaidan said, shaking his hand. "Stay safe, Dean."

"Yeah," Dean replied, rising to leave. "You too."

* * *

Shepard rushed up the stairs, a cold sense of dread settling in her gut.

"You don't think she...?" Garrus' voice trailed after her, slightly out of breath from the run. Shepard didn't break stride to answer him. She came to the landing at the top of the stairs. The desk outside of Liara's office was empty. When Shepard opened the door, Liara was standing at the window - alone.

"Shepard," the asari said, coolly, turning to face her.

"Oh my God, Liara," Shepard murmured. "What did you do to her?" Behind her, Garrus came into the room and looked around, then positioned himself by the door, pistol out and ready.

"Nothing more than she would have done to me," Liara replied, raising a brow. "Nyxeris was quite talented, but not talented enough."

Shepard frowned at that. Did that mean Liara had killed her traitorous assistant, or simply handed her over to the authorities? Shepard decided that she really didn't want to know.

"Nyxeris was very well compensated by the Shadow Broker," Liara went on, sitting at her desk with a detached grace. "I leave her earnings to you. Those credits should come in handy on your travels."

"I don't want that...money, Liara," Shepard said, only just refraining from calling it 'blood money.'

"I already sent it to your account," Liara replied, arching an eyebrow. "Take it as payment for helping me get one step closer to taking down the Shadow Broker."

"What the _hell _is up with you and the Shadow Broker?" Shepard asked taking a step towards the desk. "This can't all be because of what you told me so far. What is this really about, Liara?"

The asari frowned and stood. She turned her back on Shepard and gazed out of the window.

"I suppose that's fair," she said at last. "You have helped me very much, you know."

Shepard came and sat down in a chair before Liara's desk and waited for her old friend to go on.

"Did Cerberus ever tell you how they recovered your body, Shepard?" Liara finally asked, her soft voice now sounding pained. Shepard shook her head, then realized that Liara could not see her. But the asari went on without prompting.

"I gave it to them," Liara said, closing her eyes and sighing. "I gave you to them, even though I knew Cerberus would use you for their own business."

Shepard sat there, stunned. She opened her mouth, yet she was completely unable to speak.

"They told me they could bring you back," Liara went on, turning to her, "And I believed them. I told myself I was doing it for you, for a chance to bring you back. But truly, I did it because..." She paused, then looked down at her feet. "...Because I couldn't let you go."

Shepard swallowed, a million thoughts colliding in her mind. Liara had given her to _Cerberus_? All this modification, this subtle cage about her, the reason that Kaidan had abandoned her and had called her a traitor - all of it was _Liara's_ doing? Shepard spoke before she could think better of it.

"_You_ did this to me!" Shepard shouted as she jumped to her feet. "You gave me to Cerberus! Damn it, Liara! How could you?" Behind her, Garrus tensed and took a step into the room.

"And if I hadn't," Liara cried back, "The Shadow Broker would have given your body to the Collectors. What else could I do, Shepard?"

"What?" Shepard blinked, taken aback. "The Collectors?"

"What did they want with her?" Garrus asked, lifting his chin. Shepard looked back at him, and if by silent agreement, the turian closed the door. Liara looked at them both, then told them the story: how the Shadow Broker had mysteriously gotten hold of Shepard's body by means unknown, how Liara had gone to recover it before he could give it to the Collectors, how she had lost a friend in the process, and how Cerberus had played every angle to ensure that they would be the ones to gain Shepard's body in the end.

"It was Cerberus or the Collectors," Liara told Shepard at last. "I made the best decision that I could."

"My God," Shepard said, sitting down heavily. "I can't imagine..." She trailed off. "And no one knows what the Collectors wanted with my body?"

"You could ask Cerberus," Liara said. "My intel regarding their intentions is very limited."

Shepard thought back to the piles of bodies they had found on the Collector ship, back to the corpses of Collectors, modified beyond recognition from their Prothean ancestors. She also thought back to Harbinger's interest in her, personally. It made sense, she thought, that the Collectors had somehow taken an interest in her body, in her DNA. It seemed that everything with them came down to DNA, to treating genetics as a tool that gave one species an edge over another. They weren't unlike Cerberus in that regard, she thought, frowning.

"I have a few thoughts on the subject," Shepard said, softly.

"Not pleasant thoughts, I imagine," Garrus murmured.

"Please, Shepard, don't be angry at me," Liara begged, her eyes pleading. "I don't have enough friends left to loose you, too. I did what I thought was right."

"I..." Shepard trailed off, feeling completely torn. The thought passed through her mind that perhaps this was how Kaidan had felt to find that an old friend had gone off and done something rather unexpected and morally dubious. What Shepard had done in joining Cerberus was not the same as what Liara had done in giving her to them, it was true. Still, the realization that there were similarities between her choices and Liara's choices was enough to soften Shepard's anger toward the asari.

"I'm sorry, Liara," she said with a sigh. "I've been on a short fuse these days. I don't like Cerberus, and it's been...hard. But I guess you did what you had to."

It was all that she could manage. Liara simply nodded, her eyes still troubled. The two of them sat there, looking at each other across the desk. Then Liara looked away and cleared her throat uncomfortably.

"There is one more thing," she began. "You see, Nyxeris...I had her send your message to Lieutenant – excuse me – Commander Alenko."

"Shit," Shepard hissed, making a face. "I forgot about that."

"Therefore," Liara went on, "I think we can presume that Commander Alenko will not be receiving your letter. I only hope she did not forward it elsewhere."

"Damn it!" Shepard said, dragging a hand through her short hair. "I was trying the keep the man safe, not tip my hand to the Shadow Broker."

"There, perhaps, I can help," Liara said, her soft voice turning cold. "I am putting pressure on the Shadow Broker, so he should have little time to chase after you and your friends. Maybe now you can see why I have to take down the Shadow Broker – for your sake, and for mine."

"I don't see that," Shepard replied. "Not really. But I suppose..." She sighed. "I don't know, Liara. I suppose we both have to make ugly decisions nowadays."

"Yes," Liara said, quietly. "That is true."

Shepard looked out to the sunset beyond the window and thought for a moment. "I don't suppose you could get another message to Kaidan?" she asked. "Just something to warn him to be careful, and that I..." She stopped herself from going any further. Liara must have understood, however, for the asari turned a slightly darker shade of blue.

"I'm not sure I should risk it," Liara said. "Not if my contacts were so compromised as to allow the Observer to be one of my own staff."

"Of course," Shepard said. She knew Liara was right, but still, she felt as though a door was slamming in her face.

"And besides," Liara went on, giving a wry smile, "Commander Alenko and I did not part on...good terms. I don't know if he will listen to any messages from me."

"Really?" Shepard asked. "Why is that?"

From his position by the door, Garrus snorted. Liara's gaze flicked to the turian before she replied. "The commander didn't want to retrieve your body. I did. We...quarreled over it."

"'Quarreled'," Garrus muttered. "That's putting it lightly."

"He didn't want to open old wounds, I think," Liara said, glancing from Garrus to Shepard.

"I suppose not," Shepard said, her forehead furrowing. "Well, I've seen pictures of what I looked like when they got me. I don't suppose that was easy for you to stomach either, Liara."

"It wasn't," Liara said, looking away. "It's...strange. Seeing you here, now, I feel as though you are not that body, Shepard. I feel as though that was someone else, and that you were just – gone – for a time. I'm not sure how to describe it."

"I'm sorry," Shepard said, frowning. "I didn't mean to..." She didn't know how to finish. She didn't mean to bring up Kaidan, her death, any of it, and yet, she had stumbled right into that conversational minefield. She felt like she kept doing that a lot these days. She had once considered herself to have a way with words. That silver tongue certainly seemed to be failing her these days.

"No, no," Liara said, kindly. She paused, then opened her eyes again. "Shepard, I feel I ought to...give you something."

"What, exactly?"

"These," Liara said, opening the drawer of her desk. "I should have given these to you from the first, but I didn't want you to know how I'd gotten them. But now that you know..."

She placed something on the desk before Shepard. Shepard took the object by one end, then slowly uncoiled it and held it before her face.

"My dog tags," she murmured. "That's right. They weren't there on Alchera."

Unlike the tags she'd found in the ice and snow, these had been cleaned and polished to a bright shine. Shepard imagined they hadn't looked like that when they'd been taken from her body. In the setting sun, they caught the light and sent reflections dancing into the corners of the room.

"Miranda let me keep them," Liara said, softly.

"You know Miranda?" Shepard said looking at her in surprise.

"Yes," Liara said, "I take it she didn't mention that?"

"No," Shepard frowned. "She didn't." She turned her attention back to the tags. She had owned so little, even back aboard the original Normandy. These old things had been with her for years - well, the chain had, at least. The tags themselves had been updated with every promotion, but she had worn tags every day of her life since Basic. It was a tie to her old life, her Alliance life, and she suddenly felt an unexpected attachment to them. Shepard smiled a little. She rarely got sentimental about physical objects, but this was certainly turning her up nostalgic.

"These were with me – with my body?" she asked.

"Yes," Liara said. "I kept them all this while."

"Would you...prefer to keep them?" Shepard asked her. She wanted to keep them for herself, but felt she ought to ask.

"No," Liara said, shaking her head. "I have had them long enough." She smiled a little. "And I imagine that you want them."

Shepard chuckled. "I'm that transparent, am I?"

"No," Liara shook her head. "Only to your friends, I think. And then, even then, it's hard to tell what you are thinking."

Shepard nodded grimly, then slipped the tags over her head and tucked them into the collar of her armor and down below the heavy plastic breastplate.

"Thank you, Liara," she said, truly meaning it.

"Of course, Shepard," Liara said.

Shepard looked at the asari, then made a face. "You know, Liara," she said. "You've been a good friend to me. I'm just sorry I wasn't a better friend to you back...back then."

Liara ducked her head, flushing an even deeper blue. "Well," she said. "You had something else on your mind."

"Kaidan, you mean," Shepard replied. "God," she murmured, "What does that mean when I know I'm being selfish but just can't bring myself to stop?"

"Among my people, we say one is being a Maiden," Liara told her, smiling a little.

Shepard snorted. She hadn't meant to say that aloud. "Well," she said, shrugging it off, "I guess that goes to show that my people tend to take selfishness for granted. We don't really grow out of it with age, much as we'd like to."

"With age?" Liara asked. "You're hardly aged, Shepard."

"I feel aged," Shepard said, rubbing her shoulder absently. It ached a little from all the shooting she'd been doing lately with the upgraded hand canon. Such things had never bothered her before, but even with the muscle and bone upgrades, she'd been feeling aches and pains at the end of the day.

"You're young," Liara told her. Then her voice dropped and her eyes grew serious. "Far too young to die."

Shepard blinked at her, startled by Liara's haunted tone. The two females stared at each other for a long moment, then, as if by silent agreement, they stood.

"Well," Shepard said, holding out a hand. "Take care, Liara."

"Yes, Shepard," Liara replied, giving her a businesslike handshake. "You know where to find me."

"Right," Shepard said. "Well..." She gave a small shrug. "Goodbye."

"Goodbye, Shepard," Liara replied.

And as she walked out of Liara's office and Garrus followed her down the stairs, the thought crossed Shepard's mind that perhaps Liara was the most lost of all of her old friends.


	51. Shotguns and Wedding Rings

_Chapter 51_

_(shotguns and wedding rings)_

_Author's Note: My one chapter story "The Color of Shepard's Panties" would go about here. It was not quite right for the tone of this story, and I'm not convinced that Kyrie would ever agree to underwear modeling for a pack of asari shopkeepers, not even in exchange for excellent sporting gear. And the ending with Kaidan seemed a little too...something. So I just kind of wrote it on a lark and set it aside from this main plot line. But if you wanted to read it, it fits about here in some alternate universe for Kyrie and Kaidan._

* * *

Shepard sat at the helm, staring over her coffee cup at the stars beyond. The Earth-hour was late, or early, depending upon how you looked at it, and she simply couldn't sleep. It wasn't the nightmares this time. It was the damn headaches. They kicked in almost every night and often got so bad that they woke her. She considered asking Mordin about it, but then she figured she'd just get used to it as she continued to adapt to her new implants. The daily workouts in the cargo bay were helping, and training with Samara was good, too. She doubted many human biotics ever had the opportunity to learn from an asari justicaar and it was an opportunity she didn't intend to pass up. Truly, considering how much she had been fighting, you'd think she'd be able to sleep through anything, but sadly, it wasn't so.

So Shepard had laid in bed for all of an hour, then wandered down to the mess for some coffee. The headache had eased a little, then came back as she checked her messages by the CIC. She dutifully avoided looking at the encrypted message labeled, "About Horizon," even as she also avoided archiving it with the other messages. Shepard then wandered up to the helm and her headache had mercifully gone away over the past hour as she just sipped her coffee and stared out at the view. EDI was keeping the ship in orbit over the planet below, systematically probing for minerals. Shepard watched the holographic display from time to time, the numbers of resources and credits ringing every so steadily higher.

They'd been on Illium over two weeks, and had now set out into the traverse, gathering information and supplies. It seemed silly, somehow, to be out here in the traverse doing chores like this when they needed to be taking on the Collectors. But at least no more colonies had been hit, and Shepard knew that she needed everything in place before taking on the enemy. That was how she'd always lost against her brothers in their real-time strategy network games as a kid. Her brothers had the patience to wait until they had gathered enough resources and built full armies before coming across the map to take her out. Her approach had been to build a few military units and charge right in. Of course, she knew from practical experience that what the battle looked like in a simulation and in the field itself were two entirely different things. Still, as long as she was acting general in this little war, she knew she needed to be careful and much was riding on her decisions to have her impulsive ways lead the team wrong now.

Shepard pulled her dog tags out from under shirt and ran her fingers over the raised text: _K. Shepard, 4.11.2154, 349-598-606, Alliance N7. _They had become something of a talisman to her, she realized. She wasn't Alliance anymore, and that fact galled her, but the tags still made her feel a little more tied to her old life.

And she missed her old life. It wasn't just Kaidan that she missed, she realized – it was that overall feeling of belonging. Even at her most lonely in the Alliance, she had felt that she was a part of something bigger than herself – that she had a cause to uphold, rules to follow – rules to hide behind. As a Spectre, making decisions about things that were clearly beyond her limited human understanding of the galaxy made her nervous. She had tried to hide that fact from the crew, and certainly from the brass. She often suspected that only Kaidan had noticed how much it bothered her.

She'd always been an idealist. She knew that. But it was easier to be an idealist with the Alliance backing her. As a Spectre, Shepard realized that the moral high ground was a luxury she had taken for granted. Making the hard choices on behalf of the Council was – hard. Most often, she had simply gone with what "felt" right at the time. Later, however, she would reflect that perhaps the right thing to do was the choice that she would lose sleep over, but which would make the galaxy safer in the end.

With Cerberus, however, Shepard felt completely at sea. She was out here in the traverse dealing with some of the roughest scum in the galaxy, and the people at her back were lost misfits – deadly in their own way, but clearly in need of guidance and not entirely trustworthy. And Shepard felt so lost herself, so unsure of who she was anymore, that it was difficult to put on a persona of leadership and walk about with that mask on. Inside the exterior of confidence that she projected to the crew, she was reaching for something, grasping at something. But what that something was, she hardly knew.

Shepard pressed the dog tags hard against her lips and frowned. She had killed a pack of mercs yesterday. They'd shot at her first, true; they'd set up a false distress beacon to lure her down to their base and she had defended herself. But one of the mercs had gone flying over her head, courtesy of her biotics, and she shot him point blank in the chest. He dropped at her feet like a doll, and the thought instantly went through her head that he might have had a family.

Right there, Shepard knew she was in trouble. She had never wondered much about the people she shot, but then, she'd never needed to think about things like that. With the Alliance, she had her orders and she followed them. If someone shot at her for following her orders, she shot back. That was how the universe worked: simple and clean. She supposed that in that way, she had been a lot like Garrus – idealistic, impulsive, and a little reckless. The difference between her and the turian, however, was that she respected the rules governing her actions. She was glad she had guidelines to follow to keep her in check, to keep her from shouldering the full weight of her actions.

And it was with that thought that Shepard realized something about herself that she simply didn't like to admit. For all that she talked about choices and making her own decisions and leaps of faith, she'd more or less followed the Alliance blindly for years. The only time she had stepped outside of their rules was when she had made the decision to hijack the Normandy. Even there, she had done so on Anderson's recommendation and done so in order to save lives. If ever there had been a reason to step outside of the law, she thought, that had been it. But she had still felt like the worst sort of traitor in the process.

Yet now, here she was, spending months of her time outside of the law. Being with Cerberus made her momentary mutiny look like some small speck against the huge betrayal of joining with terrorists. True, she was here because she didn't have much choice: Cerberus had their hooks in her and the Collectors needed to be stopped. Shepard sighed and frowned. In some ways, this mission was like one very _long_ run to Ilos – without Kaidan along to make the journey more pleasant.

Shepard frowned at the thought of Kaidan and let her dog tags drop. Thinking about him, about _them_, was a constant itch in the back of her mind. It wasn't just that she missed him constantly – though of course, that was part of it. It was that she felt lost without Kaidan. He hadn't just been her lover – he had been her best friend. He had been her voice of reason and the one person who stood up to her and called her on her bad decisions, assured her when she'd done the right thing, and endured her selfish moods. And somehow, he had done all that with the respect and courtesy of a subordinate officer trying desperately to toe the line in front of the rest of the crew. Shepard still didn't know quite how he managed to do that and stay sane. If she'd been in his place, she would have gone crazy.

Though truly, Shepard thought, she had felt like she _had_ been going crazy even back then. Kaidan had always been pulling back, always looking at her with that unspoken question in his eyes. She had never been quite sure what to say him when he looked at her like that. How was she supposed to answer a question that he never asked? How was she supposed to tell him that she loved him when he was always pulling away? And now he was gone – he had walked away and left her alone to her own means. She could manage without him, she told herself with a scowl. She had done so for years before Kaidan came along. She had led teams, accomplished missions, held off attacks all on her own and she was damn proud of herself for it. She could handle herself without him.

But still, she thought, sadly, she had managed on her own, but only as a soldier. As a person, a whole person, she'd been better off with a friend. While Kaidan had sometimes frustrated her, he had always drawn her out of her icy, selfish shell. Now Shepard felt now like she was crystallizing, loosing the warmth and flexibility and, hell, _humanity _that Kaidan had brought out in her. She certainly felt like she was loosing her sense of humor without him around. She knew she was pushing people aside to focus on her mission and her problems, but she didn't really know how to break free of the machine that Cerberus was shaping her into.

Her lips curled into a rueful smile. Funny how working with a pro-human organization made her feel like a mere tool and only Kaidan had ever made her feel human. It was ironic, that.

Shepard took a gulp of cold coffee and went back to fingering her dog tags.

"What are you doing up here?"

Shepard started in surprise. She uncoiled from her slouched position and straightened into a more commander-like pose just as Joker stumbled up to the helm, blinking down at her in bleary-eyed confusion.

"You're in my seat," he said, frowning.

"It that how you talk to all your commanding officers?" she asked, raising an eyebrow.

"It's the first thing I said to Anderson," Joker yawned.

Shepard laughed, her pensiveness fading slightly. "No wonder he was always pissed off when he talked to you."

"Yeah, well," Joker shrugged. "You gonna move?"

"I happen to be the commander," she told him. "I can sit wherever the hell I want."

"And I can drive the ship better than you," he replied.

"I could have to keelhauled for insubordination," she informed him.

"Outside of the ship?" Joker asked in mock fear, "Oh God no, because you've never tossed me out of the Normandy before and taken _my place_." His joking expression hardened into something almost angry.

Shepard cocked her head to the side in surprise. "You really were pissed at me for dumping you in that escape pod, weren't you, Joker?"

"I was," he said, scowling. He scrubbed a hand over his face, then let it drop. "Never mind."

"No," Shepard said. "Speak your mind, Joker."

The helmsman sighed and shrugged. "Hell, commander," he said. "The Normandy was my arms and legs. It was like you'd made me an amputee and then you died on me."

Shepard blinked at that rather stark image. "Geez," she muttered. "Sorry, I guess. But next time don't be an ass and get off the ship when I give the order. Then it won't be a problem."

"Yeah," Joker muttered. "Okay, fine. Point taken. Look, I'm sorry. I'm just cranky in the mornings. Plus, EDI woke me up with something off of your play list. It was colony western. So that made me feel like shooting myself."

Shepard laughed. "Do tell. Which song was it?"

"I don't know," Joker snapped. "I just know that I don't want to hear it again."

"Fair enough," Shepard replied, standing and waving a hand at the helm. "Your seat, Joker."

"Thanks," he hauled himself into the chair. "So what are you doing up here anyway, commander? I know you like to get my insightful opinions on the Cerberus crew and all, but I didn't think that you'd come up here to chat with EDI when you can just call her from anywhere in the ship."

"Just passing time," Shepard replied. "Tell me," she said, lifting her chin at the holographic display, "do those search probes ever fall on a house or a factory or something? I mean, some of these planets are colonized."

"Huh," Joker asked, turning to look at the screen. "I never thought about that before. Do you know, EDI?"

"I calibrate the landing points for all probes based on scans of minerals and of existing structures," EDI replied automatically. "We are at a distance from the planet where I can accurately launch a probe to an appropriate location."

"Impressive," Joker said, nodding. "Good thing you're looking out for the little guy, EDI, since I sure as hell wouldn't."

Shepard just smiled. Joker was certainly getting used to the AI, in spite of his initial dislike of it. She wasn't sure if it was a good thing or a bad thing, but she was getting used to EDI, too. The ship had certainly saved her butt on numerous occasions.

"So," Joker said, looking over his shoulder at Shepard. "What's on the menu for today, commander? Taking out mercs? Helping one of these Cerberus kiddies reunite with their daddy or mommy or sister or brother or dog or something?"

Shepard chuckled and shook her head. "We're just scanning our way through this system," she said. "EDI's long-range sensors noticed some quarian ships mining in the asteroid belt. I was going to check in with Tali once she's up to see if she wants to stop and visit with the migrant fleet before we move on. I imagine they'll be glad to see she's well."

"Yeah," Joker said, rolling his eyes. "Check in with the quarians from a Cerberus ship. Great idea."

Shepard gave wry smile. "Well, like I said, I'll check with Tali first. Chambers said Tali wanted to see me about something anyhow."

Joker nodded, then looked back at the helm. "Is it just me, commander," he said lightly, "Or are we slowly making our way back to the Citadel?"

Shepard chuckled. "You noticed that, huh?" she asked.

"I _am_ the helmsman," he pointed out.

"Yeah, we're going there eventually."

"Emphasis on the 'eventually'?" Joker asked.

Shepard realized she was pinching her dog tags between her thumb and forefinger. She let them drop to her chest. "The Council wants to keep me out in the traverse," she said. "I'm not in a hurry to rush back to their welcoming arms."

"So you're sneaking back into Council space a system at a time?" Joker asked.

"Eventually I'm going to need to go there to talk to Anderson," she replied.

"Why's that?" Joker asked.

"I dunno," she shrugged. "Before we hit the Omega 4 relay I want to...lay my cards on the table with him, I guess. If we come back from the mission – when we come back – I want to..." she trailed off and slanted a glance at the blue sphere that represented EDI's constant presence on the ship.

"So I should be ready with the shotgun?" Joker quipped. "Who do you think is gonna come after us once we take out the Collectors? The Alliance or the Spectres?" He glanced at EDI's sphere again. "Or someone a little closer to home?"

"If we make it back we need to be ready for anything," Shepard said. "Let's just get through the mission first, though."

Joker nodded, then asked, "You think Alenko's on the Citadel?" His voice was suspiciously casual.

Shepard made a face and then shrugged. "The thought has occurred to me, but I don't know."

"It's a huge place," Joker said. "You'd have trouble finding him even if he was there."

"Yeah," she murmured.

"Would Anderson...? Oh, hell," Joker frowned and turned away.

"Would Anderson what, Joker?"

"He wouldn't still keep you in the dark about where Kaidan – I mean, Alenko, is stationed now, right? If we went and tried to recruit Kaidan, then maybe..."

"Then maybe what, Joker?" Shepard raised an eyebrow at him.

"He'd join us?" Joker suggested.

"We're still Cerberus," she pointed out.

"Oh," Joker frowned. "Right. I guess you tried that already."

"I did," Shepard said softly.

"But still..."

"No, Joker," Shepard said with a shake of her head. "I think my first impulse was the right one: the less people who join Cerberus, the better."

"They're not all bad," Joker told her.

Shepard said nothing.

"Come on," Joker said. "I mean, they're not like our old crew, but some of them are alright."

"This crew is alright," Shepard told him. "Getting to be alright, anyhow, but the rest of Cerberus..." She trailed off and glanced again at EDI. "Just be ready, Joker."

"Aye, aye, ma'am," he said, giving her a rather smart-assed salute. Shepard gave him a tight smile.

"Right, Joker," she said. "I'll see you later."

"See ya, commander," he said. Shepard nodded to him and headed back down the length of the bridge to the CIC. Joker waited until the commander was out of earshot before turning to the blue sphere beside his station.

"Is outgoing mail to Alenko still blocked, EDI?" he asked.

"I still have a standing order to intercept and forward all mail sent to..." EDI replied.

"Yeah, yeah," Joker interrupted. "And you still don't see any loopholes?"

"I do not, Mr. Moreau," EDI replied. "As before, the Illusive Man's orders are nearly impossible to circumvent."

"Damn," Joker said, turning back to the helm. "Well, keep trying, EDI. We'll think of something." His eyes narrowed and he muttered: "I have a few choice things to say to that guy if I get half a chance."

"Understood, Mr. Moreau," EDI politely replied.

* * *

"Thanks for backing me up on this, man," Dean said, tugging nervously at the collar of his dress blues. Kaidan gave Dean a smile and slapped him on the back.

"You know she's going to say 'yes'," he told his friend.

"Wish I had your confidence," Dean muttered.

They reached the doors of the clinic and Dean stopped cold. Kaidan gave him a shove. "Go on," he said.

"I should have called first," Dean muttered. "Or...something. Shit. What if she doesn't like the ring?"

"She's going to love the ring," Kaidan told him. In truth, he knew nothing about rings except that Dean had said the diamond-studded band of platinum had cost two month's wages. The girl damn well better like the ring, Kaidan thought.

"Can you...?" Dean turned to him, pleadingly.

"What?" Kaidan laughed. "Ask her for you? Sorry, Dean, this is something you have to do yourself."

"You're enjoying this, aren't you?"

"You have no idea," Kaidan replied with a small smile.

Just then, the doors to the clinic slid open. The red-headed Dr. Michele walked out and nearly ran into them.

"Oh!" she said in surprise. "Hello there, Dean. And..."

"Commander Alenko, ma'am," Kaidan reminded her.

"That's right," she smiled. "Are you here to pick up the girls?"

"Ah..." Kaidan looked to Dean just as Dean looked to him.

"They didn't mention it. So I suppose this is a surprise?" Dr. Michele smiled. "I'm afraid they're up to their elbows in preparing flu vaccines. 'Tis the season, you know. Do you want me to tell them you're here?"

"Yes, please," Kaidan said just as Dean said, "No."

"Yes," Kaidan insisted. "But just..." he trailed off as Dr. Michele walked back into the clinic and the doors slid shut. "...Katie." He finished. "Damn."

"Okay, this was officially a bad idea," Dean said.

"Calm down," Kaidan told him. "You're going to be fine."

"I should have remembered the clinic was busy this week."

"You'll be fine," Kaidan said again. "You'll..."

"Dean?" Katie stepped through the doors of the clinic, frowning. She was wearing a tight doctor's uniform, which clung to her short, curvy body. Dean looked down the length of her and seemed to go mute.

"Uh... Dean said, gaping like a fish. Kaidan elbowed him.

"Go on," he hissed.

"Is something wrong?" Katie asked, concern filling her voice.

"I got discharged from the Alliance and I'm moving to Earth," Dean informed her all in a rush.

"What?" Katie asked. Her large brown eyes widened, suddenly filling with tears. "You're _leaving_?"

"No!" Dean said, a little too loudly. "I mean, yes. I mean..." He looked helplessly at Kaidan. Kaidan waved his hands as if to say, "Don't look at _me_."

"I'm not leaving _you_," Dean said, turning back to her.

"But you just said..."

"Come with me," Dean croaked. He sounded like his throat has seized up. "You don't need to work here anymore." Katie's eyes narrowed. Kaidan felt like slapping his forehead. Dean had obviously stepped into some very dangerous waters by the look on Katie's face.

"You want me to give up my _job _just because you decided to take off all of a sudden?" she asked, her voice a little steely now.

"God no," Dean said, tugging again at his collar.

"Take her for a walk down the Ward," Kaidan hissed at Dean. Hopefully, when Dean got going, he wouldn't make quite such a bungle of this.

"Right," Dean said. "Here, just, um...can we talk somewhere, Katie?"

"So what?" Katie snapped. "You just expect me to drop everything when you haven't even..."

"Damn it, Katie," Dean scowled. "I'm trying to _propose_ to you."

Katie stared at him for a second, her mouth dropping open. Then she suddenly, violently, burst into tears.

"Shit," Dean muttered. He quickly wrapped his arms around her. She tried to push him away, but he just held her fast. A crowd began to form around them, looking on in concern. Dean looked to Kaidan in helpless confusion as Katie apparently changed her mind, buried her face against his chest and took large, gulping gasps of air every few seconds.

"Take the woman on a walk, Dean," Kaidan said, nodding down the street. Dean said nothing, but quickly pulled Katie away around the corner and out of sight.

As soon as they were gone, Kaidan found that he was shaking with laughter. It wasn't the worst proposal on record, he thought, but it had to be close. But just then, the doors to the clinic opened and Dr. Michele and Lisa walked out. Kaidan instantly sobered, his face falling into a frown.

"I found them!" Dr. Michele announced triumphantly. Lisa pressed her lips together and looked at Kaidan questioningly. Kaidan suddenly wished he hadn't come to help Dean after all. He found himself nervously rubbing the back of his neck.

"Ah...hi," he said, lamely.

"Hi," Lisa said.

"Have a good night!" Dr. Michele said, waving at them both. "Don't stay out too late," she added with a wink.

Lisa waited until the doctor was out of sight before turning to Kaidan and folding her arms over her chest. "You could have called," she said, accusingly.

"I was just trying to help Dean propose to Katie," Kaidan said quickly.

"Propose?" Lisa blinked, letting her arms drop.

"Only your friend the doctor thought we were here for the both of you." Kaidan added hastily.

"Propose?" Lisa said again.

"They went that way," Kaidan said, pointing.

"He finally proposed?" Lisa asked.

"In a manner of speaking," Kaidan hedged.

"Well," Lisa said. She considered the floor, then looked up at him. "Good."

"Yeah," he replied.

Lisa glared at him. "So I assume that means you weren't here for me?" she asked, archly.

"God no!" Kaidan said, holding his hands up quickly. "I mean..." he added when her eyes narrowed. "I just came as moral support for Dean."

"Right," she said tersely, her lips thinning. She turned to go.

"Lisa..." Kaidan began.

"Do you _want_ to see me?" she asked, her green eyes glittering.

Kaidan had no idea how to answer that question. "No," sounded rude and "yes," was not entirely true.

"I didn't mean to upset you," he said at last.

"Wrong answer," she said, coldly. Raising an elegant black eyebrow, she flipped her dark hair over her shoulder and stomped away. Kaidan watched her go, feeling like a complete idiot.

"God almighty," he muttered, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Ash was right. I really don't understand women."


	52. Momentum

_Chapter 52_

_(momentum)_

_Author's Note: I'll say it again - thank you all for the reviews. They mean the world to me, and I really enjoy reading them. So thanks._

_Also, the Liara DLC was announced today (wee!) and hopes abound for what that will mean for Kaidan/Ashley. We will see. In the meantime, I am pondering the continued oddity that Shepard is everywhere in these games, like, all over the map, and yet Kaidan is continually in hiding. *le sigh*_

* * *

"How goes your search, commander?" Anderson waved a hand at the empty chair before his desk.

"Well enough," Kaidan replied, handing Anderson a datapad as he sat down.

"Good," Anderson said. Both of them knew that the councilor's office could be bugged. So it was with deliberate care that Anderson glanced at the datapad and said carefully: "Are all of your notes in here, commander?"

"And encrypted, sir," Kaidan told him. "The pass key is the third one we agreed to."

Anderson nodded. "As you requested, commander, here is the next batch of files for your review. Fifth encryption key."

"Thank you, sir." Kaidan took the datapad from Anderson, then gazed down at it, thinking.

"Sir," he asked after a moment's consideration. "Have you truly given me access to everything you have about our...about _her_?"

"I beg your pardon?" Anderson frowned.

"Well, sir," Kaidan said, striving for a polite tone. "You've given me intel going back for about three and a half months, but before that, you gave me nothing."

"That's because there _is _nothing," Anderson replied. "Nothing conclusive, anyhow."

"There was that tip about the information broker who claimed to have her..." Kaidan stopped himself from saying 'body' just in time.

"That turned out to be a false lead," Anderson's face became grim. "We could never corroborate that."

"So according to Alliance intel, she was off the grid for two years," Kaidan murmured. "What was she doing?"

"I don't know," Anderson replied, standing brisky to pace behind his desk. "That's what I want you to find out. And what you find will determine if we can bring her home or..." The councilor trailed off meaningfully.

"Or if you're going to take her down?" Kaidan asked, his gut clenching at the thought.

Anderson just raised his eyebrows. "Anything else, commander?" he said, coolly.

"No sir," Kaidan said, swallowing and standing. He left the room with a salute, waited until the doors slid shut behind him before he let his shoulders droop.

Kaidan took a deep breath and sighed. He supposed he should have seen that coming, but the thought of Shepard being officially labeled an enemy of the Alliance just made him feel ill. Heonly hoped that there was something - _anything _- in this mess of data that said it wasn't so. His mind had been whirring for weeks now, still trying to process what he had learned from these files. Other than his morning workouts and eating and sleeping, Kaidan had been spending all his time trying to put the clues together. Yet, he was no further along in making sense of the mess than when he'd begun.

He still couldn't understand what had possessed Shepard to join Cerberus. The more that Kaidan saw of the terrorist organization and their dealings, the more he realized she'd essentially damned herself by aligning with their cause. Anderson had given him precious little data about the rogue organization, but Kaidan had already concluded that Cerberus had not cleanly cut ties with the Alliance. He couldn't tell if the Alliance simply had moles in their midst, or if, in fact, some of the brass had deliberately funded Cerberus years ago – and perhaps were doing so still. As he nodded at the administrative assistant and left the embassies for the parks of the Presidium, Kaidan couldn't help but shudder. It really was beautiful here, he thought. It was strange to think that these white-walled structures all potentially housed secrets and spies.

Kaidan knew that he needed to watch his step in his investigations. Cerberus had a history of "cleaning up" messy problems like Kahoku. But he simply couldn't give up on this investigation either. For two years, Shepard had been completely silent. But then, suddenly, she was everywhere. Starting about six weeks before the attack on Horizon, she'd been spotted fueling up her ship near Omega. Then came the docking records of her stop by the Citadel.

Kaidan had questioned Anderson at length about that interview, even though Anderson didn't have much to say. The councilor simply explained that Shepard had agreed to be reinstated as a Spectre. She then asked Anderson how he was doing. She had spoken as if no time had passed, Anderson said. Then, according to Anderson, Shepard had asked after Kaidan. Kaidan's heart had leaped at that bit of information. He hardly knew what to make of _that._ Perhaps she was simply trying to recruit him. But then again, maybe it meant something more. It was hard to say. Kaidan wanted to read something into it, but didn't dare let himself hope – not when his email to her was still unanswered.

The intel that had followed Shepard's visit to the Citadel was even more puzzling. She'd been spotted on Omega fighting with mercs and then out fueling up at depots all across the traverse. She had sent the brass information about the rachni, then had turned around and caused a prison riot out on Purgatory Station. Then she had gone to Horizon. Kaidan knew that mission better than anyone and yet he still felt that he didn't understand what, exactly, had happened there.

And then, about a week after Horizon, Shepard began to show up all over the place. She left the Alliance a message to come pick up a man named Ronald Taylor on criminal charges. She wasn't there when the fleet arrived to pick the man up, however. A few weeks later, a refinery out on Zorya had been "liberated" from the Blue Suns. The slave workers all claimed that a golden-haired woman, a turian, and a very ugly man had saved them from a fire. It sounded suspiciously like Shepard and Garrus, Kaidan thought, though who the third man might be, he couldn't imagine.

There had also been several dozen entries recorded with the Central Galactic Survey Project, all under the name K. Shepard. If Kaidan was understanding those records right, and he suspected he was, then Shepard was visiting worlds all across the traverse, logging rare mineral deposits as she went. Her ship must be very powerful, he thought, to be able to get such extensive surveys from some of these worlds. It also was interesting to him that Shepard would continue to register her finds in the central galactic databases, rather than keep that knowledge private. These scans had earned her quite a few credits, he saw, but not as many as she might have gotten for selling this information to the highest bidder. But then, he thought fondly, Shepard used to say that the galaxy belonged to everyone, but most especially to the people who cared enough to go out and make a home in it.

Kaidan shook his head. He dearly wanted to believe that Shepard still was the same type of woman who would believe something like that. But some of the things he had heard about her actions made him suspect that she had changed for the worse. There had been a report that a high-ranking asari businesswoman on Illium had been murdered in her office. A certain Commander Shepard had been seen poking around the building shortly before that time. And the Alliance had collected all sorts of reports about a biotic human woman with golden hair attacking merc bands on various worlds. The Blood Pack, Eclipse, and the Blue Suns had all reported losses. The precision of the attacks and the fact that they were primarily taking place in Prothean dig sites told Kaidan what he needed to know. He was sure that it was Shepard.

Kaidan didn't like it. It sounded too much like she was taking the law into her own hands, and he had always feared that might happen with Shepard. Her idealism had always been tempered with a respect for Alliance rules before, but there were times when he worried that the lack of oversight as a Spectre would eventually go to her head. Now, it seemed that it had.

It was odd though, because Shepard was acting was more like a vigilante than the typical Cerberus operative. She wasn't announcing her return at large, but she wasn't keeping it secret either. So if Anderson really had given him everything, then it seemed as though Shepard had been a very busy woman for three months, but had done nothing prior to that. Either she had been deeply undercover for Cerberus, their prisoner for two years, or she really had been in a coma all that time.

Kaidan reached his apartment and punched in the elaborate code for the lock to his door. Anderson had put him up in a quiet corner of the Presidium, all the better to stay away from possible security leaks at the barracks. Kaidan went into the tiny studio room and triple-locked the door behind him. The place was sterile and spartan; the one desk was covered with datapads. Kaidan sat down and typed in the encryption key to the new information that Anderson had given him. He read his way through the datapad, his dark brows drawing together as he took in the information.

Apparently, the Alliance had just lost one half of the Watson colony to batarian terrorists. Someone had arrived on site just in time to stop a full scale attack, but apparently had made a choice about which section of the colony to save. That person had chosen to save the civilians - and the Alliance would now have to withdraw their forces from that world. Some estimates suggested that up to seventy percent of the Alliance concerns in that area of the traverse were now destabilized as a result. And yet, Kaidan noted, over one thousand lives had been saved in the bargain.

Only one registered ship had been tracked in the airspace above the moon of Franklin that day: a Cerberus vessel named _Normandy_.

Kaidan shook his head and tossed the datapad onto the growing pile, then dragged a hand over his face. She'd saved a colony. Shepard had saved a colony - _again_.

It was becoming something of a habit of hers, he thought with a sad smile. He still suspected she did it all for the sake of the only colony she could never get back. After all, her affiliation with Cerberus was supposedly about stopping those Collector attacks. But still, Kaidan thought, it was pretty extreme to join with Cerberus to try and protect innocent lives. That was like joining a pack of wolves in an effort to better herd sheep.

Kaidan sighed and stood. He dragged a hand through his hair as he went into the kitchen to make himself something to eat. The trouble was, Kaidan realized, he had gone into this investigation the way he had always approached uncertain circumstances. He hand planned to get his facts straight, and then make a judgement on what Shepard was up to and what sort of woman she had become. But instead, the more facts he uncovered, the less and less he knew what to think. Shepard's behavior just didn't make any sense - not on Horizon, not before Horizon, and certainly not since Horizon.

And yet, one thing was becoming clearer every day: if the Alliance didn't know if they could trust Shepard anymore, if the Council didn't know if they could trust Shepard anymore, then it wouldn't be long before they sent someone after her much like they had once sent Shepard after the traitor, Saren.

Kaidan frowned at that thought, his gut twisting in a knot. Basically, he figured Shepard had until the Collectors were defeated, and then she would have to prove her loyalties once and for all – or be hunted down and executed for treason.

* * *

"No secrets between shipmates, Tali," Shepard said, leaning against the railing and looking at her friend. "That's what you said down there. So tell me, truly – how are you?"

Tali let her head fall forward, as if she was considering the floor through the purple haze of her helmet. "My father's dead, Shepard," she said, simply.

Shepard said nothing. She simply tried to listen with all the compassion that she wished someone had held for her back when her father had died.

"But," Tali said after a moment, "At least I know that his last thoughts were for me. And we honored him by retaking his ship."

"We did," Shepard told her. "_You _did. He would have been proud. And he would have been proud to have you take his place on the admiralty board, too."

"Keelah," Tali muttered. "I hope they don't ask me."

"If they do, I think you should take it," Shepard told her. "You'd lead your people well, Tali. I know you would."

"Thank you," Tali said. "But I don't know. I'm not so good at keeping my head when I get angry. I get riled up and I don't speak so well. And I talk too much when I'm nervous. You saw me. You had to step in with your own speeches."

"Public speaking comes with practice," Shepard told her, "but competence is something you have to start out with – and you have that in spades."

"Spades?"

"You'll learn to make speeches," Shepard clarified. "But you already have intelligent things to say."

"I wish I had your abilitiy to make speeches," Tali said. "I've never had anyone defend me like that before."

"Truly Tali," Shepard admitted. "I was shaking in my boots before all those admirals. Doesn't matter if they aren't Alliance, it's still intimidating to a marine to stand before an assembly like that. But I knew I had to do something for you after all you've done for me."

"Thank you, Shepard," Tali said. She sounded like she was smiling under her helmet.

"You're welcome," Shepard told her. "I only wish I could do more for your people. All what you said about your homeworld and flowers and sunsets..." Shepard frowned. "I've only visited Earth twice, but even so, I can't imagine losing it. Earth is a sort of – hope, I guess. No matter how far off into the stars that we go, we can always return to it and find that it welcomes us."

"Yes," Tali said. "I suppose we quarians feel that without a home world we can never really rest. Still, I hope my people are careful in how they go about claiming a home. What my father did..." She trailed off and couldn't finish.

"Agreed," Shepard said, nodding.

"And you, Shepard," Tali replied, straightening a little. "No secrets from shipmates. How are you?"

Shepard gave her a sad smile, "No secrets, huh? The problem is, Tali, with Cerberus listening in, I have to keep secrets." She nodded at the camera in the corner. "No offense."

"Yes," Tali said. "I see what you mean."

"I'll be fine," Shepard told her. "Each day I'm gaining – _we're _gaining – momentum. We can do this, Tali, I know we can. We can stop the Collectors – and we'll live to tell about it."

"And return to the ones we love?" Tali asked, cocking her head to one side.

Shepard's face grew troubled. "Yeah," she said softly. She shrugged, uncomfortable under Tali's silent gaze.

"What about you and Kal'Reegar?" Shepard asked, swiftly changing the subject. "You going to try and return to him?"

"What?" Tali asked, her pale eyes blinking behind her mask. "No! I mean – Kal's busy. Besides, he thinks of me just as an admiral's daughter. He called me 'ma'am,' Shepard. You heard that."

"I heard," Shepard said, a smile quirking at the corner of her lips. "And I've heard more than a few soldiers use that term before. 'Ma'am' might have been what he was saying, but it was _not_ what he was thinking."

"How do you know?" Tali asked.

"Male quarians wear very tight suits, Tali," Shepard said, raising an eyebrow meaningfully.

"You were looking at his...?" Tali gasped. "Keelah! Shepard!"

"Well, it was right _there_," Shepard said, waving at hand at the region below her waist. "Just because _you _didn't see..."

"I did see," Tali admitted. "I mean, I didn't _want_ to see... Not that I wasn't looking. I mean... I wouldn't _do _anything. I wouldn't hook my suit up to just anyone. Not that Kal is just anyone. I mean.. Oh, Keelah." She trailed off and buried her helmet in her hands.

Shepard laughed, the sound ringing through the room. "Tali," she said, patting her friend on the shoulder, "Are you actually blushing under that helmet?"

"You're terrible, Shepard," Tali said, lifting her head. "Boshtet captain..."

Shepard shrugged off the playful insult. "Don't worry Tali. I won't do anything embarrassing like offer you advice or anything like that."

"I could actually use some advice," Tali said, hopefully. "I'm not used to having soldiers talk to me like I'm a superior officer."

"Don't ask me, Tali," Shepard told her. "Seriously, for mixing romance and combat, I'm not a good example."

"So throwing myself between Kal and a geth Prime to get his attention would be a bad idea?" Tali quipped.

"Exactly," Shepard nodded. "Let Kal take one in the teeth for you." She smirked. "Actually, I think Kal would like that. He'd probably take that as some kind of tactical foreplay."

Tali shook her head. "Like I said," she laughed, "You're terrible, Shepard."

"Always," Shepard grinned.

* * *

"Miranda here, sir."

"You've certainly taken your time between status reports, Lawson," came the sharp reply.

The Cerberus officer straightened her shoulders and looked down at the glowing holograph of the Illusive Man before her. It was true that it had been some time since she had last given a report in person – or in conference, as it were. But she had been strangely reluctant to talk to her boss lately. She did not want to examine exactly why that was, nor did she want to examine the question of why he had started to call her by her last name.

The Illusive Man had called her "Lawson" back when she first started working for him. To hear it now seemed extremely strange. It was all the more strange because Shepard had finally started calling Miranda by her first name. Miranda hardly knew what to make of the change - on either side.

"We've been busy, sir," Miranda told him.

"Too busy to tell me that you recovered a Prothean relic of some power? Too busy to tell me that Shepard almost kicked Zaeed off of the mission due to some disagreement? We paid him too well to have Shepard abandon him on Zorya."

"He wanted to leave dozens of people to die..." Miranda began.

"...Too busy to tell me that Shepard may have convinced the Migrant Fleet to join our fight against the Reapers?" the Illuisve man continued.

"She did what?" Miranda blinked. "Sir, I haven't even spoken with Shepard since she returned from the fleet. She's been talking with the quarian all this time."

"Ah," the Illusive Man said, steepling his fingers. "I see. Well then, perhaps _I_ should be the one filing the mission reports, Lawson."

Miranda frowned. She knew that the Illusive Man could listen in on nearly any conversation on the ship and frequently monitored their suit-to-suit comm systems as well. But it never failed to unnerve her when he spoke of the missions mere minutes after they happened. It made him seem like some kind of god, listening in on everything.

"Well then," Miranda snapped. "Perhaps _you_ can tell me where we're going next, sir. I'm afraid I've been busy looking into upgrades for our equipment. I haven't had time to ask Shepard about her plans."

"You're slowly heading towards the Citadel," the Illusive Man said. "I should have thought that was obvious."

"Yes, well," Miranda said, shifting a little on her feet. "Is that a problem, sir?"

"I don't know," the Illusive Man replied. "Will it _become_ a problem, Lawson?"

His voice was more clipped than usual, though Miranda couldn't tell quite what was the cause of his irritation. She suspected that it was Shepard's decision to return to Council space. For some reason, that made Miranda irritated in return.

"Shepard won't give up on this mission," she said, conviction in her words. "Not now. She's too devoted to the team – even to that mistake, Jack." Miranda scowled a moment before continuing. "She's taking care of things with remarkable ease, sir, even better than we could have hoped. The team is strong and they are getting more prepared by the day. The new upgrades to the Normandy have made the ship stronger, faster, and more deadly than any other vessel in council space."

"Save for that of the Collectors," the Illusive Man murmured.

"We may even be able to take them on, sir," Miranda said. "Shepard believes that we can."

"You're inspired by her, are you?" the Illusive Man said, his eyes narrowing.

"I am," Miranda said, lifting her chin. "This is by far the most successful mission I've ever been a part of - though it is far from over."

"And do you believe, like Shepard, that this mission is successful because Shepard refuses to acknowledge Cerberus's hand in all this?" the Illusive Man said, softly.

Miranda's mouth fell open a little. "What?" she gasped. "How did you...?"

"Yes, Lawson," the Illusive Man said, his lips curling in a cold smile. "I overheard your conversation with Shepard. There are devices in even _your _rooms, you know."

Miranda just blinked at him. The Illusive Man continued smiling and lifted his glass to her in a mock salute.

"I'm glad you suggested that Shepard give Cerberus another chance," he said. "It's good to know your loyalties are still to humanity, Lawson."

"Of course they are," Miranda said, frowning. "Did you doubt me?"

"Shepard is persuasive," the Illusive Man replied, "And she's becoming increasingly hard to read. Sometimes, I wonder..." He broke off, then took a drink and set his cup back down. In the holographic display, his pixelated form seemed to shiver in the air.

"Keep Shepard on track," the Illusive Man told her. "We need her to pick up momentum, to act on instinct. If we give her time to reflect, she might begin to wonder..."

"Wonder what, sir?"

"Just...wonder."

The Illusive Man's eyes seemed to flicker for a moment, then he said, "Dismissed, Miranda."

The quantum entanglement link abruptly cut out, leaving Miranda alone and confused in the comm room.


	53. Dumb Trash

_Chapter 53_

_(dumb trash)_

* * *

_Author's note: This __fanfiction flips the actual story of Mass Effect: the romantic subplot becomes the main plot while the main plot becomes the subplot. But as ME2 ends with no resolution of Shenko romance and no idea where things are going to end up (curses!) I'm heading out of the realm of what I know as canon and into what I can only guess at._

_The Liara DLC comes out in a week. In addition to looking forward to it for it's own sake, I'm hoping that will give some indication as to what can be expected for the continuation of romances and other such things for the ME saga. The Kaidan stuff that I'm writing post Horizon may turn out to be totally against canon in the end. I'm just following my own supposals from here on out. We'll see if they hold true for any future DLC or ME3. They've amused me while I'm waiting for official stuff from BioWare, I guess. I hope they amuse you, too. _

_Author's other note: In the actual game, Kyrie enough charm points to pull off the final persuasion check in the scene below, but somehow I found that I liked this idea better. After all, eternally perfect Shepard is a boring Shepard._

* * *

_So beautiful,_ Shepard thought, drawing in a sharp breath. _So very beautiful._

"I love clubs," a voice as smooth as honey said. "People, movement – heat. I can still hear the beat, like the drums of a great hunt, out for your blood."

_Why is this voice speaking to me? _Shepard wondered. In her mind, it felt like the tide was coming in, washing away her memories with each new wave of lust.

_How did this happen to me? I__'m just dumb trash from Mindoir. Someone so lovely shouldn't have chosen me._

Those words seemed to echo other words, spoken by another voice. They set off warning bells in her mind, but the ringing was fuzzy, distant. The body before her was exquisite, curves outlined in soft, black leather. The heat of that body radiated in the cold room, warming Shepard to a fever pitch. She could smell something delicious in the air - apples or pomegranates, something sweet that made her mouth water.

"In here," the beautiful voice went on, "the sound is muted. And you're safe." The body settled against Shepard's side as if the two of them were made to fit together.

_Safe, _Shepard thought, exhaling. _Safe from pain, from hurt. Safe from loneliness. _She gazed into the bright eyes before her. They seemed to dance, to hold the promise of all the journeys into all the galaxy in their depths.

_No one has ever looked at me like this, _Shepard thought, _like they hunger for me, like they want to crawl inside of me. _

At that thought, the warning bells grew louder. Unease tickled along her nerves, sent fires through her mind. It joined with her arousal, unsettling her. She couldn't tell where attraction ended and fear began. She hastily looked away.

"Safety is an illusion," Shepard murmured, trying to hold onto some memory that eluded her. "This safety...is an illusion." She shook her head as if to clear it.

"What's the matter, love?" The honey-sweet voice murmured in her ear. "I wouldn't have guessed you would grow timid on me. Not as boldly as you walked into that club."

"I can't..." Shepard struggled, forcing her eyes to stay on her lap. "I came with you because..." She couldn't remember now, but there had been a reason, hadn't there? There was something wrong here, but she couldn't recall what it was.

"Surely you've gone home with someone before," the beautiful voice said, almost laughing now. "Or are you hesitating because you've never been with an asari?"

Shepard tried to remember back, to recall if there had been other lovers. That all seemed so long ago.

"There was a man," she murmured.

"A man?" the beautiful face broke into a teasing grin. Shepard looked up, avoiding the creature's eyes. It was incredible to see that smile, but the laughter hurt. Shepard wanted to push away the mocking, to push away the reason for mocking.

"Yes," Shepard admitted. "A man." She ducked her head in embarrassment. It was wrong, certainly, to mention a mortal lover before a goddess. She couldn't remember him well, anyway, she thought. His face was hazy; his body was hazy. It had been too hard, anyway, his body. More like earth and less like water, not as fluid and curving as the form melded to her side.

"Men have a fire in them," the beautiful mouth spoke, "But it goes out as soon as it comes. They rush in, and then they are gone." The dark lips curled into a devastating smile.

"Gone?" Shepard repeated. She seemed to remember the man, her lover, walking by her side. He marched with her, shoulder to shoulder with her, his gait steady and determined. But then, somehow, that memory didn't seem right. She also had a picture in her mind of his back as he turned away. She tried to remember the man's face, but in the memory, he wouldn't turn around again.

As Shepard struggled to remember, other things returned to her mind as well. There was something she was supposed to remember. It had to do with the beautiful creature beside her - and with this place...

This place, Shepard thought, blinking. She looked around, seeing a dimly lit room, full of exotic treasures. There was a sword on the wall, ancient and beautiful. There were sculptures, costly as any gallery she had ever seen. On the table beside her was a full bottle of Hallix. Had she had any of those pills? she wondered. She couldn't recall. There was something wrong with the walls here, it seemed. They were too dark, too metallic. The lone window looked out on a dingy city below. This wasn't a museum, surely, nor was it a back room in a club. Where was she, exactly?

A hand touched Shepard's cheek, sending shivers of biotic energy down her throat. That same hand slid down to rest against the swells of her breasts. She shuddered, looked down to see another hand resting on her thigh. The hands were blue. That wasn't right, she thought. The hands were supposed to be tanned - strong and calloused.

Shepard shivered, feeling suddenly wrong. The hand at her cheek tipped her chin upward. She nearly caught the eyes of the one gazing at her, but then quickly looked away. She shivered as lips suddenly feathered her ear, sending waves of biotic fire pulsing down her spine.

"You, my love," the beautiful voice whispered, "The moment I saw you, I wanted you. You marched into that club cautious, yet determined. Virgins go as sacrifices to their goddesses in such a way."

Shepard felt the hand sliding slowly up her thigh, felt the hand reaching down to cup her breast. She tried to think, tried to remember...

"There was a man," she murmured. She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to hold on to that memory. But all she could recall was his back as he walked away.

"Then why isn't he here?" the voice asked. The tone went from honey-sweet to utterly cold. It was like ice against her skin.

Shepard looked up, startled, into the speaker's face. Before her were fathomless eyes, black from pupil to lids, like the void of dark space.

"I can't remember," Shepard whispered.

"Then don't remember, love," Morinth commanded, her eyes promising both pleasure and oblivion. "You don't need to remember anything anymore."

* * *

"You really ought to get out more. You know, meet other kids. Maybe meet some nice boys."

Shepard took an apple from the bowl on the kitchen table.

"There aren't any nice boys," she said with knowing authority.

"How do you know? Do you ever talk to any boys?"

Shepard glared at the tiny woman bustling about the kitchen. It was amazing to her that someone so small could make such a nusance of herself. Even the sweet way that she smiled was annoying. She was smiling now, her almond eyes crinkling at the corners.

"The other kids don't talk to me, Suki," Shepard said flatly. "Boys especially." She grimaced and bit into the apple.

"Well, if you stopped walking around in torn combat pants and dirty old t-shirts, they might," Suki said. "We bought you new things after Min - After everything that happened to you. I don't know why you won't wear them."

"I like this better," Shepard said. She hugged her arms over her chest, over the t-shirt that had once belonged to her brother. It was falling apart at the seams, but she didn't care. Shepard took another bite of her apple.

"And you should let your hair grow out," Suki went on. "Such a pretty color. You could look so nice if you didn't frown so much."

Shepard responded to that comment with a frown.

"Boys don't like girls who frown," Suki informed her.

"I don't care about boys," Shepard replied, lifting her chin.

"You like girls then?" Suki asked. She was obviously trying not to make a judgement about that fact. Trying and failing, to judge from her expression.

"No," Shepard said, coldly. "I don't like anyone."

"Aw, now that's not true," Suki said, smiling so that her eyes crinkled all the way to the edge of her face. "You must like someone."

"No," Shepard said. "I don't. Everyone at that school is scared of my biotics and no one talks to me."

"They probably don't know what to say," Suki said. "The way you frown all the time, they probably think you're mean."

Shepard made a face and continued to eat her apple.

"What about that one teacher, Ms. Kyjinski?" Suki asked. "You like her."

"It's Lieutenant Kyjinski and she's not a teacher. She's a recruiter for the Alliance."

"But you like her, don't you?" Suki pressed.

"I guess," Shepard said, as she took another bite. "She doesn't think I'm a freak."

"If you tried, Sophia," Suki told her, "You might get people to like you. Instead you push them away."

Shepard glared at the woman, swallowing hard. "Don't, call me that," she said coldly.

"Don't call you what?" Suki asked, bewildered.

"Don't call me 'Sophia'. It's 'Shepard' now."

"But that's your last name," Suki said, frowning.

"Yeah," Shepard said. "And I'm the only one left."

"There are other Shepards out there in the galaxy," Suki told her.

Shepard snorted with disgust and looked away. Suki wrinkled her forehead and went for a gentle tone: "If you tried to look nice, Soph...Shepard, then maybe people wouldn't notice the biotics. If you grew your hair long enough to cover the scars..."

"You don't see past the biotics either, do you?" Shepard snapped, glaring at the tiny woman. "You think that somehow if I look like everyone else and act like everyone else that I'm going to fool them into thinking that I'm normal like them. But I'm _not_ like them, and I never will be."

"I don't understand why you don't try harder to fit in," Suki said, frowning at her.

"Yeah," Shepard said, scowling. "You don't understand, do you?"

Shepard stared at her foster mother for a long moment, her eyes full of fury. Suki stared back at the tall, pale girl and found nothing to say.

"Whatever," Shepard said, rolling her eyes. She tossed the apple core into the garbage and stomped out of the room.

* * *

Shepard wrapped her arms around her waist, fighting back tears that threatened to fall at any moment. She looked out of the window at the view of Omega below. Behind her, Samara pulled a blanket over the body of Morinth and began murmuring a low prayer.

Samara had just killed her daughter, Shepard thought, gritting her teeth. That other woman – the woman from the slums – had also lost a daughter. Both of them were mourning, mourning a loss Shepard could not even begin to understand. And yet, all she could really think about was how badly she wanted to get out of this dress, take a shower, then strap herself into her armor and fall asleep in it. She had never felt so vulnerable, so completely laid bare.

But that wouldn't help, Shepard thought. No physical armor could have saved her from Morinth. She would have stripped herself of every defense at a single word from that creature. The thought disgusted her. Shepard had always prided herself on being "remarkably strong willed" as Liara had once said, but even the most strong willed people had a breaking point. She knew that from study, from active combat and from prisoner of war trainings. She knew that it was always only a matter of time before someone snapped. No one could hold out forever. She just hadn't thought to find her breaking point so easily.

Lost, Shepard thought. That's what it was. She had lost herself tonight. It wasn't facing death that had rattled her. She had done that many times before - hell, she'd even died. But she'd never lost herself quite like that. She had been lost to lust, lost to her own need for someone – anyone – to look at her with adoration. Morinth had hit upon a weakness Shepard thought she had buried long ago. But apparently, that desire was still within her – the desire for someone to want her for herself – not the rank, not the skills, not what she could do or accomplish. It was the desire of a girl on the brink of womanhood, of a child abandoned to a world that didn't understand her or want her. It was a human desire. Shepard knew that and yet her own weakness frightened her. That weakness had nearly destroyed her. If Samara hadn't reached this place in time...

Shepard shuddered. She thought she had gotten over her aching need for love and acceptance from others. That desire had run her into all sorts of trouble in Basic and brought nothing but heartache after Elysium. And as for Horizon - Shepard thought of the half-memories of Kaidan for one instant and then shoved them aside.

She didn't like being alone, she thought, lifting her chin. But she wasn't afraid of being alone. She couldn't afford to be afraid of it.

"Are you alright?"

Shepard didn't turn at first, not realizing the question was directed at her. Then Garrus repeated the question. Shepard turned to him, blinking up into his piercing blue eyes.

"Yeah," she murmured, tucking a strand of her hair behind her ear. It was too short by far and fell back into her face at once. "Yeah, I'm...fine."

Garrus stared at her for a moment.

"I don't like that armor," he said at last, frowning at her.

"It's not armor," Shepard told him. "It's a dress."

"That's why I don't like it," Garrus said. He waved a three-fingered hand at her bare legs. "You're too soft, Shepard."

Shepard gave him a blank look.

"I'm sorry," Garrus said, hastily. "I didn't mean to insult you. It's just that you're all pink. You look like someone peeled a turian down to the muscle."

Shepard's forehead furrowed a little. Garrus twitched and made a face. "I'm making it worse, aren't I?" he asked.

"It's okay," Shepard replied, feeling too dazed to be insulted. "Humans are pretty squishy when it comes down to it."

Garrus watched her for a moment, then said slowly, "I suppose turians look strange to humans, too, don't they?"

"No," Shepard shook her head. "In fact, right about now, I kind of wish I had armored plating like you. Not that it would have helped." She shuddered and turned her attention to Samara. The asari was now standing at the window, her face impassibly stern.

"You don't find turians strange?"

It took Shepard a moment to register the question. Her mind had been some where else entirely.

"Strange?" she asked, still watching Samara. "No. Aliens are different, but not strange." Garrus shifted on his feet and swallowed. Shepard did not notice.

"God, Garrus, did this really help her?" she murmured, motioning to Samara. "Or did we just make things worse?"

"You stopped a killer," he told her. "And she asked for your help."

"Yeah," Shepard said. "I guess. If Morinth really had been on a killing spree for four hundred years..." She thought of how she might have been just one more victim and shivered.

"Are you really okay, Shepard?" Garrus asked her.

"I'll be fine," Shepard replied. "Just...thanks for being here, Garrus. You had a lot of guts walking back onto this station after what happened the last time you were here."

"I wasn't about to leave you alone," Garrus said. "I didn't like Samara's plan at all. She had to hold me back from following you into that club."

"I didn't like the plan, either," Shepard agreed. "But it worked. I guess that's what matters."

She took a deep breath, then gave Garrus as bright a smile as she could manage.

"Let's get out of here, Garrus," she said. "I think I've officially decided that I hate Omega."


	54. Flashback: Assets

_Chapter 54_

_(flashback: Normandy SR1, docking bay 422 of the Citadel, five days after the Battle of the Citadel, four weeks before the descruction of the Normandy)_

* * *

"This is Staff Lieutenant Kaidan Alenko, requesting permission to come aboard."

Kaidan waited in the decontamination chamber, blinking each time the white laser washed over him. There was a pause, then:

"Permission granted. Welcome back, lieutenant."

Kaidan felt his heart skip a beat and a small smile formed on his lips. He'd heard that voice less than forty-eight hours ago. At the time, however, it had been moaning his name.

_Don't think about that,_ he told himself sharply. _That was then, this is now. You're not off dufy anymore._

_But maybe she's thinking the same thing_, his wayward mind suggested.

Kaidan took a deep breath as he hoisted his duffel bag onto his shoulder. If she was thinking that, he told himself, then likely she was also trying to banish such thinking from her mind. Shepard knew as well as he did that they needed to keep things professional. They'd talked at length about it before they'd gone their separate ways and taken different flights back to the Citadel.

The doors slid open before him and Kaidan stepped into the dark interior of the ship. He gazed fondly down the crew deck, smiling at the familiar faces there.

"Lieutenant," one tech said, saluting. Kaidan nodded in return.

"Alenko!"

Kaidan chuckled as he heard Joker's voice from the bridge. He knew he needed to get his gear stowed, but he figured he had a few minutes to chat. He walked up to the helm, set down his bag and sat in the empty seat beside the helmsman.

"How's it going?" Joker asked, holding out a hand. Kaidan shook it as gently as he could.

"Good," he said. "How've you been, Joker?"

"Alright," Joker shrugged. "Glad to be back at work. Missed this girl something awful." He nodded at the helm. "We got a few upgrades. Can't wait to try them out."

"You gonna warn me when you do?" Kaidan asked. "Give me time to get to an escape pod?"

"Hey," Joker said. "It's not like I'm going knock out the artificial gravity or something stupid like that. Don't think I will, anyway."

Kaidan chuckled. "Right," he said.

"So where'd you go?" Joker asked suspiciously. "I didn't see you around the Citadel at all." He looked over his shoulder and jerked his head down the hallway behind them. "Did you...you know?" He raised his eyebrows suggestively.

"Did I what?" Kaidan knew perfectly well what Joker was hinting at, but wondered if the man would actually come out and say it. Kaidan supposed he should have known better, because Joker instantly asked:

"Did you and the commander finally do 'The Deed'?"

"Damn it, Joker!" Kaidan hissed. "Keep your voice down."

"Well, did you?"

"That's none of your business," Kaidan said, frowning.

"So is that a 'yes' or a 'no'?" Joker asked.

"That's a 'it's none of your business'."

"Seriously, Alenko?" Joker asked. "You're not going to tell me what happened?"

"No, Joker," Kaidan said. "I am not going to tell you what happened."

"Really?" Joker asked, apparently unconvinced. "Come on, Alenko. If something like that had happened to me, I sure as hell would be bragging about it to anyone who would listen."

"You would not," Kaidan told him. "Not if you really cared about the woman."

"Huh," Joker said, considering that. "So something did happen, then?"

Kaidan rolled his eyes. "Drop it, okay?"

"How can you come back here and act like nothing happened if something happened? I mean, something did happen, right?"

"Joker," Kaidan said, looking over his shoulder and speaking in a hushed tone, "If something happened, then I'm off the ship. Got it?"

"Oh," Joker said, making a face. "Right."

"Right," Kaidan said, matching Joker's tone. "So," he said, speaking a little more loudly, "What did you do for leave, Joker?"

"Huh? Oh, nothing," Joker shrugged. "Hung around in Flux most of the time. Watched aliens dance. Tried to figure out the difference between male and female elcor."

"Really?" Kaidan asked. "Can you tell the difference?"

"Naw," Joker shook his head. "But when I was buzzed I thought I could. Glad leave is over. I don't like being off the ship. Makes me jumpy."

"Joker," Shepard's voice came over the comm, making both men straighten a little in their seats. "Is the lieutenant there with you?"

"Yes, ma'am," Joker said. He slanted Kaidan an 'are you in trouble?' sort of look.

"Have him report to the comm room,," Shepard said. The slight scratching sound on the comm told Kaidan that she'd logged off.

"Huh," Joker said, looking slowly at Kaidan. "So I guess nothing happened after all."

Kaidan gave Joker an enigmatic smile and stood.

"None of your business, Joker," he said. He lifted his duffel onto his shoulder and walking away.

Kaidan chuckled to himself as he wandered down the command deck. The truth was, he thought, what had happened in the past few days was better than any shore leave he'd ever had before. Hell, that one migraine aside, it had been one of the best times of his life. And while he was still feeling uncertain about everything to come, he was seriously looking forward to another such vacation. He hoped the Alliance would be granting one soon.

Kaidan nodded at the greetings from the techs and other crew on duty as he walked along, then he stopped briefly to shake Navigator Presley's hand. Everyone, it seemed, had benefited from the two week break – and from the honors they'd received from the Alliance before that. While the crew was going about their business as usual, Kaidan sensed a certain energy in the air, a kind of camaraderie and excitement that he hadn't realized he'd missed until he stepped on board.

Kaidan continued on into the comm room, nodding briefly to the marine who saluted him at the door. Then the doors slid shut behind him and he saw he was alone in the room with Shepard. She sat at her usual seat, just to the right of the holographic display area, a datapad in one hand and a few more stacked neatly at her feet. He tensed then, suddenly unsure of how their on-duty reunion might play out.

Shepard looked up and smiled. "Hey," she said, simply.

Kaidan let out a breath he didn't know he'd been holding.

"Hey," he replied.

"You can go put your things away first," Shepard said, noticing his bag. "I just wanted to check in with you before the rest of the team arrives. We have a lot to do."

"I have a minute," Kaidan said.

"Commander?" Joker's voice came over the comm. "Another one for you."

"Engineer Adams," another voice spoke, "and first engine tech Ruskev. Requesting permission to come aboard."

"Permission granted," Shepard replied, glancing briefly at the ceiling. "Have a seat," she said, looking at Kaidan. He took his usual chair beside hers and set his bag at his feet. Shepard handed him a datapad and he looked it over.

"Geth attacks have all but stopped," she told him. "That's the good news. We're to take some supplies to the new Alliance outpost on Watson and then continue on to the Armstrong Nebula."

"That's pretty far out in the traverse," Kaidan said with a frown.

"Don't I know it," Shepard replied with a sigh.

"Commander?" Joker's voice came over the comm. Shepard didn't even look up as she said, "Here."

"Doctor Liara T'Soni requests permission to come aboard," a soft, polite voice said. "Um...Did I do that right?"

Shepard looked at Kaidan and grinned. He returned her smile.

"Hello?" Liara's voice called again. "Was that alright?"

"Perfectly alright, Liara," Shepard called back. "Permission granted. Stow your things and come meet Kai – Lieutenant Alenko and me in the comm room."

"I...Yes, of course," Liara said, sounding a little flustered on the other end of the comm. "Hello lieutenant. How are..." Her voice stopped short as Joker dropped the link.

Shepard shook her head. "Ah, Liara," she chuckled. "Not exactly a marine, is she?"

"She can still hold her own in a fight," Kaidan said.

"That she can," Shepard agreed. "Shocked the hell of of me when we were on Noveria, I tell you what. Here I was thinking I'd have to assign you to keep an eye on her and then she broke out a biotic kick to rival one of yours."

"Well, she is an asari," Kaidan pointed out.

"Yeah, but to look at her..." Shepard shrugged. "Appearances can deceive, I guess. Okay," she said, turning back to the datapad. "So supplies first and then the geth."

"No assignments regarding the Reapers?" Kaidan asked. Shepard's face fell and she shook her head.

"Don't even get me started," she muttered.

"That bad, huh?"

"Yeah," she said. "This is where I pulled the Spectre card and told the Alliance that the minute I'm done with those geth I'm going to follow any and all leads that I can about the Reapers. They weren't happy, but I don't care. I am not going to table this search, Kaidan."

"Lieutenant," he corrected, giving her a small grin.

"Right," she said, grimacing. "Sorry."

"It's okay," he told her, now wishing he'd kept his mouth shut.

"Okay," she went on, "Anyhow, we need to find some way to bring the Reapers down - tech, a weapon, something, anything. I'm going to need your help in that search Kai - lieutenant."

"What can I do?" he asked at once.

"As a Spectre I get access to all records about Protheans and other space-faring species that got wiped out," Shepard told him. "It's not much, but I'm hoping that it will lead us to another beacon or something might give us the intel we need. The clues are probably out there, but it's going to take a lot of digging to make it all make sense."

"Liara can help with some of that," Kaidan suggested.

"That's what I'm counting on," Shepard nodded. "I'll need you both to help me go through all those records and decide where to start looking."

"I can compile all the relevant intel from the Alliance databases and then cross-reference the files with any other records you have access to," Kaidan told her. "I'll just tag and index the files so that we can update them easily and fill in the Council as we go along. Do you want me to prioritize the list of possible search sites in order of which ones are most likely to hold Reaper data or which sites are closest to Armstrong?"

He looked to Shepard for an answer, only to find her staring at him.

"I mean," he said, confused by her expression, "I don't know if it's going to more efficient to go system by system to save on fuel or to jump around and save time..."

Kaidan broke off suddenly as Shepard leaned over and gave him a kiss on the cheek.

"You are amazing," she said, pulling back to gaze at him steadily.

"Ah," Kaidan let out a breath and looked down at the floor. "Shepard... I mean, commander..."

"I know," she said, raising her hands. "I know. Professional. But truly, Kaidan – lieutenant – you are the best."

"Uh, thank you...ma'am." Kaidan rubbed the back of his neck, then let his hand fall.

"I've seen you lead a team," she went on, her eyes warm, "train squad members while in the field, rig a bomb, get covered in grease while fixing the electrical systems – which was incredibly sexy, by the way..." She gave him a sultry smile.

"Commander..."

"But," she added, "You can also file a report with the best of them and offer excellent advice."

"You don't need to flatter me, Shepard," Kaidan said. He could feel himself beginning to blush.

"No," she replied. "But I don't say this often enough. In a purely _professional_ capacity," she emphasized the word by raising her eyebrow, "you are the best soldier I've ever met." Kaidan opened his mouth to protest, but she held up a hand to stop him.

"Just take the compliment, Kaidan," she said. "Since we've got to keep this all above board now that we're back on duty, I've got to make sure that I take time to admire all of your...assets." She looked him over slowly, "And not just the assets I've been admiring so far."

Kaidan shook his head and laughed. "You're going to drive me crazy, you know that?"

"Crazy in a professional way, right?" She winked at him.

"Most definitely," Kaidan said, his gaze dropping to her lips. He smiled, lifting his eyes to hers, and Shepard smiled right back.

"Ah, commander," a timid voice spoke from the doorway, "I hope I'm not interrupting."

Shepard looked up to see Liara peeking nervously into the room.

"Ah, no," Shepard said, shaking her head and pulling away from Kaidan. "Come join us. We were just talking about Prothean dig sites. We're trying to decide where we're most likely to find information about the Reapers. Think you can help us there?"

"Of course," Liara said, brighting as she took the offered datapad. She scanned down the list, nodding at each entry. Kaidan thought Liara seemed to relax a little, given that this was a subject that she knew a great deal about.

"Good," Shepard said. "We have a lot of ground to cover, but we've got access to the Council's files this time. We've also got the best ship in the Alliance fleet and the best crew in the galaxy. We'll find the information that we need to bring down the Reapers, and then we'll..."

"Commander?" Joker called. Shepard glanced up, seemingly annoyed at the interruption. Kaidan stifled a grin.

"Yes?" she asked, rolling her eyes.

"Tali Zorah..."

"Yes, Tali," Shepard said. "Permission granted. We're in the comm room." She looked back down. "Where was I?"

"Giving another stirring speech?" Kaidan teased her. She narrowed her eyes at him.

"Watch it, lieutenant," she said.

"Why do we have to ask you for permission to come onto the ship?" Liara wanted to know. "Why can't we just ask Joker?"

"Tradition," Shepard said as Kaidan answered, "Protocol."

"Hmm..." Liara said. She turned her attention to the datapad.

"Commander?" Joker's voice came over the comm again.

"Yes?" Shepard called.

"Rosamund and Talitha Draven," a chirpy voice announced. "Permission to come aboard."

"Granted," Shepard called to the twins. "Welcome back."

"Can't you just make them wait at the door?" Liara wanted to know. "Have them all come in at once?"

"I wish I could," Shepard said. "But it doesn't work like that."

"How many more are coming?" Kaidan asked.

Shepard sighed. "Only half the crew is here so far. Okay, so any ideas yet, Liara? Alenko?"

"The Leviathan of Dis," Liara said, nodding to the datapad. "The Council has more information about it than I did."

"Should I put that at the top of our list?" Kaidan asked Shepard.

"Sure," she said, just as the doors to the comm room slid open.

"Hello commander," Tali said brightly.

"Commander?" Joker's voice came over the comm again, cutting off Shepard's greeting to the quarian.

"A little chaotic today, isn't it?" Kaidan asked, looking up at Shepard with humor dancing in his eyes.

Shepard just laughed and shook her head.

"A bit," she said. "But it's good to be home."

* * *

_(present day, 52 degrees north on the planet Zanethu, Hourglass Nebula, 0500 hours)_

* * *

"What the hell were you doing?" Garrus snapped, yanking Shepard into the shuttle.

Shepard pitched forward as the shuttle took off towards the sky. For a moment, she was smack against Garrus, her face smashed against the hard armor of his chest. Then she fell back against the bench opposite him. Garrus grasped at the railing behind him, then carefully found his seat and strapped himself in. Shepard found her harness and did the same.

"I didn't expect to see you in here, Garrus," she said, yanking off her helmet and running a hand thorough her hair. Her movement made her hair stand up all over the place. Garrus looked at the top of her head as if in a daze, then seemed to recover himself. His eyes narrowed.

"You are the most reckless person I've ever met!" he practically shouted at her.

"Nice to see you too, Garrus," she said, frowning at his outburst and tucking her helmet under her arm. "Shouldn't you be sleeping, though?"

"No," he snapped. "_You_ should be sleeping. My day just started when Joker told me where you were. I came on the pickup shuttle right away. Damn it, Shepard! You can't take risks like that."

"Like what?" Shepard asked mildly. "This time I had armor on."

"You were running around on a ship about to pitch off the edge of the cliff." Garrus waving a hand at the window. "You're lucky it didn't...Oh, spirits," he breathed.

Shepard looked out of the window just in time to see the wreck fall. From up here, the Estivanico looked like a broken toy toppling off of a table. The ship had felt much bigger when she was standing on it.

"Shit," she muttered. "That was close."

"_Close_?" Garrus gaped at her. "You call that _close_?"

"I got out in time," she told him.

"I cannot believe you!" Garrus shouted at her in truth now. "How can you be so careless?"

"Last time I checked, Garrus, I was in command, not you." Shepard's voice went cold and she glared at him. "I appreciate your concern, but this was _my _call."

Garrus stopped short at that, his mandibles flaring. He turned his head away, then looked back at her.

"You're our captain," he told her, obviously struggling for calm. "You can't put yourself at risk by...by walking around on a ruin of a ship!" His voice rose to a near shout again.

"I'm an N7 and a marine," Shepard replied evenly. "I've been doing this kind of thing since I enlisted."

"You're only human, Shepard," Garrus said. "You don't regenerate like a krogan, much as you seem to think that you can."

"Regeneration doesn't count in situations like that, anyway," Shepard told him. "There it's dexterity that counts, and I have that as much as any other human. It's part of what gives us an edge."

"This isn't the first contact war, Shepard," Garrus told her, frowning.

"No," she replied. "It was a simple salvage mission and I was fine. If I can't pull off something like that, Garrus, then I've got no chance against the Collectors."

"You won't be going up against the Collectors alone," Garrus told her.

"No," she said. "But this was still good practice."

Garrus shook his head. "It was still a risk," he said.

"It wasn't that bad," Shepard replied. She lifted her chin and added, "Look, Garrus, I know you turians like to put your captains in the back and send the pawns out in front. But in human history books, the generals who got the most done were the ones who were willing to ride out in front of the armies."

"I've read your human histories," Garrus said, folding his arms across his chest. "Not all human generals did that."

"Yeah, well, I prefer the ones who did. Otherwise you get something like the charge of the light brigade."

"The what?"

"A fucking mess," she clarified. "Anyhow, I hear you, Garrus, but it's still my call. And I managed it just fine. Besides," she added, going for humor, "The only other person awake this morning was Grunt. If I'd sent him, he probably would have gone over the cliff in a rage."

"Hmpf," Garrus sniffed, obviously not believing her for a second.

Silence descended upon the small shuttle. Shepard looked out of the window, watching the clouds below them.

"Truthfully, Garrus," Shepard said quietly, "I just needed to get out of the Normandy and be alone for a while."

Garrus frowned at her. "Why?" he asked, arms folded over his chest.

"It's just too..."She searched for the right word. "Clean."

"Clean?" Garrus blinked at her. "The Normandy is too _clean_?"

"No, that's not it," Shepard ran her hand through her hair again. "It's too bright. Too many people. It's just not...home."

"It's not the old Normandy, you mean." Garrus said, snorting.

"Yeah," she said, nodding and raising her gaze to his. "It's not. Sometimes it feels like it is, but then it feels wrong. Sometimes I wish they hadn't tried to copy the old ship and that they just built something entirely new."

"That would take some getting used to," Garrus said.

"Even as a replica it takes some getting used to," Shepard replied.

Garrus frowned at her, his mandibles flaring. "You know," he said at last, "I liked our old ship and our old crew, but this new one isn't so bad."

Shepard gave him a pointed look.

"Cerberus aside," he added, raising his hands defensively, "But they've stayed out of your way for the most part. And you've recruited some really good operatives. Well, not that Krios..."

"What's wrong with Thane?" Shepard wanted to know.

"He's an assassin," Garrus said, his voice dripping with distaste, "And a free-lancer at that."

"You were something of a free-lance assassin, Garrus," Shepard reminded him.

"It wasn't even remotely the same!" Garrus protested.

"Okay," she said, holding up a hand. "Fair enough." She shrugged. "Regardless of the team's abilities as individuals, Garrus, the truth is that they have no idea how to work together."

"Well, that's your job, isn't it?" Garrus asked. "You're supposed to lead them."

Shepard snorted, then her expression grew thoughtful.

"Yeah," she said. "I guess I am."

"Huh," she added, looking out of the window to the retreating surface of the planet below. "You know, I took it for granted that I could lead a team, but a lot of what I did was really just building on what the Alliance had accomplished. They had the rules, the regulations, the protocols. My Alliance crew already knew all those things - they knew their place. Adding a few good aliens like you and Liara, Tali and Wrex was pretty easy. It's a hell of a lot harder to build a team when you're starting completely from scratch."

"Heh," Garrus said, shaking his head. "Tell me about it."

"How did you get your team to work together?" Shepard asked him. "I mean, they weren't trained professionals."

"Not when I got them, no," Garrus replied. He shrugged. "I found out what they could do well and then I set them to it. After a few missions together, everything fell into place. Part of success is having the right people in the right place."

"Yeah," Shepard said. "That's true enough."

"You did the same with Saren," Garrus told her.

She shrugged.

"You're not giving yourself enough credit, Shepard," Garrus told her. "I was there."

"Yeah," she said. "Well, I guess it's time to stop recruiting and start building up the team, because we have a hell of a mission ahead."

"Any word from the Illusive Man?" Garrus asked.

"Nothing new," she replied.

The two of them fell into silence as the shuttle punched through the pink and gold atmosphere and out into the blackness of space.

"So," Garrus said after a minute, "I, ah, I had something I wanted to ask you about, Shepard. If you have the time."

Shepard looked around the empty shuttle. "I don't think I'm busy at the moment, no," she said, smiling wryly.

"Right," Garrus said, coughing a little. "Well, ah...I wanted to know... That is..."

He coughed again. Shepard just raised her eyebrows.

"Are we headed to the Citadel?" he asked in a rush.

"Eventually," Shepard replied, her brow furrowing. "Why?"

"I have some business there," Garrus said.

"Heh," she said, shaking her head. "You and Thane both."

"Thane?" Garrus scowled. "What does Thane want?"

"That's his business," Shepard said. "What do you want, Garrus?"

"Well," Garrus said slowly, "it seems that I have a chance to repay an old debt."


	55. Battlemaster

_Chapter 55_

_(battlemaster)_

_Author's Note: __I felt Shepard's leadership skills were a little lacking in ME2. She goes from being this amazing commander of a team in ME1, stirring speeches and all, to just doing random stuff on her own or with a couple of people until the very end. Maybe it was the lack of post-mission debriefings mid-game. Maybe it was ending each mission in a lonely comm room. Maybe it was how easily "loyalty" could be gained. Maybe it was the lack of squadmate banter. It's understandable for a while, but post-Horizon funk can only last for so long, right? and then you have to move on..._

* * *

_Dear Kaidan,  
__Garrus and I got to talking the other day about this mission and the old days. He's been working with me all this time, coming with me on every single mission - just like when you used to be here. And after talking to him about the team, I came to a kind of realization..._

"Commander."

Shepard quickly saved the letter as Miranda walked in to the comm room.

"So," Shepard asked, shutting down her omnitool. "Can you get him on the comm?"

"He's not responding," Miranda said.

"What do you mean he's not responding?" Shepard asked, frowning. "You spoke with him just the other day. I know, I saw the comm room records_._"

"He's not a butler, Shepard," Miranda said. "You can't ring for him any time you like."

"A butler?" Shepard blinked at the Cerberus officer. "Who the hell has a butler anymore?" She then realized who she was talking to. "Just get him on the comm."

"Shepard," Miranda said, "He says he wants to help..."

"He just doesn't want to answer any of my questions."

"I understand you're upset..." Miranda began.

"Upset?" Shepard whirled on her. "I've been trying to reach the Illusive Man for weeks now. Then he gets on the comm with you and all he has to say is that he doesn't want me to take unnecessary risks? He's the one sending me on a suicide mission!"

"You offerred yourself up as bait for a killer, Shepard," Miranda said. "You keep going off on groundside missions by yourself. He's understandably worried."

The fact that Garrus had said the same thing the other day did not improve Shepard's mood any.

"Look," she said, "It's my mission, my call. You have to trust that I know what I'm doing."

"Did we really need to track down a murderer on Omega?" Miranda asked.

"Did we really need to be there when they moved your sister, Miranda?" Shepard replied. Miranda scowled.

"Look," Shepard said, trying to gentle her tone. "You didn't see what I saw there, Miranda. Morinth killed a kid – a girl who was so much like me at the age of seventeen that it's scary."

"You can't..." Miranda began.

"What?" Shepard asked. "Build this team? Make sure their loose ends are tied up? You and Cerberus are quick enough to recruit me for your little clean-up operations, aren't you? I mean, what the hell was that whole geth thing all about?"

"I admit that Project Overlord was..." Miranda broke off, considering how to proceed.

"A mess?" Shepard suggested. "An atrocity? Hell, Miranda," she said, waving a hand, "how can you _work_ with these people?"

"They're not all like that," Miranda hedged.

"They're not?" Shepard asked, quirking an eyebrow. "You had a lab for biotic research that went totally rogue and made Jack the way she is. You had cells that killed colonists, tortured marines, murdered admirals. You had that Overlord...thing. And after all that you're _still_ going to defend them?"

For once, Miranda said nothing. She just frowned.

"You told me to give Cerberus another chance," Shepard went on. "Kelly keeps telling me about your 'noble goals'. But every time I turn around, I see one more case of crazy. Either your Illusive Man is the most incompetent manager I've ever seen to allow this level of insanity throughout his organization, or he's deliberately hiring nut jobs and allowing them to do whatever they want so that he can get what _he_ wants and yet claim no responsibility."

"He didn't know about all those things," Miranda said, frowning.

"Again," Shepard said, eyes narrowing. "Is he incompetent or evil? You tell me."

Miranda just let out a breath and turned her head away.

"Right," Shepard said, feeling her point had been made. "Well, if that Illusive Prick decides to contact us, you tell him that I want to talk to him."

"I don't think he wants to talk to you anymore," Miranda said, hesitantly. "He doesn't want you distracted from your mission with the Collectors."

"Distracted?" Shepard snorted in disgust. "If he didn't want me distracted, then he shouldn't have forced me to work with him. Being with Cerberus distracts me enough."

"That's not fair, commander," Miranda said with a frown. "We saved your life."

"So you keep telling me," Shepard muttered. She stopped and sighed. "Look, it's not that I'm not grateful, Miranda."

"It's just that you're not grateful," Miranda said, frowning.

"No," Shepard admitted. "I'm not. Not to Cerberus. Not with so many strings attached." She shook her head, then gave Miranda a slight smile. "But I am grateful to you, Miranda. You're actually...not so bad."

"Flattered, I'm sure," Miranda said, wryly. But she almost smiled back.

Shepard considered the brunette for a moment. "You know, Miranda," she said. "The first time I met you, I thought you were a..."

"Yes?" Miranda said, raising an eyebrow, daring her to go on.

"A bitch," Shepard finished.

"I thought the same about you," Miranda replied.

Shepard laughed. "Yeah, only you look like a prom queen. I look like the girl who sets fire to things in shop class."

"Prom?" Miranda repeated. "I never went to the prom. I was on the run from my father at that time."

"I didn't go to prom either," Shepard admitted. "I think I had a therapy appointment that night."

The two women looked at each other for a moment. Then Shepard chuckled and shook her head. "Takes all kinds, I guess," she said.

"I guess," Miranda repeated. She shook her head, then frowned a little. "What's taking Jacob so long?" She fired up her omnitool to check the time.

"He and Garrus are rounding up everyone else," Shepard told her. "Should be here any minute now."

"Everyone else?" Miranda asked, closing the 'tool. "What do you mean 'everyone else'?"

"You know, Miranda," Shepard said, turning to face her and folding her arms over her chest, "You're good at mission reports and can fight in high heels. That's impressive. You've also done a great job with keeping the crew in line. But your antipathy to the squad shows."

Miranda frowned. "What are you talking about?"

"It's my fault," Shepard said, raising an hand, "I should have said something long ago. I really didn't see it until we'd recruited ourselves a full team. But now we need to make some changes with how we deal with that team."

"How...?" Miranda broke off as the doors to the comm room opened.

"Sorry we're late," Garrus said, striding in. "Jack gave us a little trouble."

"Shepard, what the hell is this?" Jack snapped at her, stomping into the room. Behind her were Jacob, Mordin, Samara and Tali. The rest of the ground team followed after. They filed in to the room, surrounding all sides of the table. Miranda stared at the crowd, then turned to Shepard and whispered: "What's going on?"

"We're having a meeting," Shepard replied.

"But..." Miranda sputtered. "There's not enough room in here."

"There was room on the old Normandy," Shepard told her. "You should have built a bigger comm room. And added some chairs."

Shepard ignored Miranda's look of frustration and glanced around the room at the twelve recruits before her. She took in every face, mentally tallying up the strengths and weaknesses of each. _Zaeed: good with guns, impulsive. Pair him with Garrus - he respects the turian. Grunt: defensive. Oddly has taken to Mordin, keep the two of them together._

They were a motley bunch, she thought as she worked her way around the room. And yet, in that moment, Shepard felt a strange tug of fondness for them. They were all warriors in their own way. And whatever else they had done in their lives, they had all agreed to follow her on this insane mission. The thought brought her a small pang of regret. Her conversation with Garrus in the shuttle the other day had reminded her that this team wasn't going to build itself. She'd spent so much time angry over the team she'd lost that she'd neglected to appreciate the team she now had. True, they were all half-crazy, but still, they were her people. And she'd been neglecting them.

_Well_, she thought, _It's time to stop being shell-shocked and time to start acting like a commander._

Shepard squared her shoulders and stepped up to the table.

"Alright," she said, "gather 'round everyone."

"Is this really necessary?" Jack scowled, folding her arms over her chest.

"Yes," Garrus said, walking to the front of the room to stand at Shepard's side. "It is."

Shepard ignored the interruption. "I presume everyone knows everyone by now, right? We don't need to do introductions, do we?"

"I've already made the rounds," Kasumi said brightly.

"Probably nabbed a few things from our bags in the process," Zaeed observed grimly. Kasumi just grinned.

"I don't believe I've met the woman with the tattoos," Thane Krios's gutteral voice said.

"And you don't need to, snake-face," Jack replied.

"Enough," Shepard snapped at Jack. "Jack this is Thane Krios; Krios, this is Jack."

"A pleasure," Thane said, bowing slightly.

"Aw," Jack made a face, "Don't tell me this is some dinner-party shit."

"I wouldn't have thought you knew what a dinner party was, Jack," Miranda observed.

"Hey, don't start with me, cheerleader," Jack snapped.

"First prom queen, then cheerleader," Miranda said, half to herself. "Damn it, I didn't even go to school. I had tutors."

"Enough, people," Shepard said.

"Too much talk," Grunt grumbled. "This is pointless."

"I agree," Jack said. "Fuck it. I'm leaving."

"Back to the table, Jack," Shepard said. "We're not done here."

"I am," Jack said.

"The commander gave you an order," Garrus growled at her.

"Your point is?"

"Don't make me put you in Stasis," Jacob warned.

"Stasis?" Jack scoffed. "That's a pussy's trick."

"Obviously you've never been trapped in one," Miranda replied, coolly.

"Have you?" Jack asked, raising an eyebrow. "What was that? Some kind of kinky foreplay?"

"Hey!" Jacob snapped.

"_Enough_," Shepard said.

She barely raised her voice, but the sound cut through the room. Silence fell instantly.

_Huh, what do you know? _Shepard thought to herself. _It still works._

Years ago, Shepard had modeled her do-not-question-me-I'm-the-commander voice after the one her mother sometimes used. Given that her mother had raised two boys and three girls on the backwater end of nowhere, Shepard knew that tone had an almost physical presence to it. She could never match her mother, but she'd gotten the voice down pretty well. Apparently, two years dead hadn't dimmed it's effectiveness.

"You all agreed to join this mission for your own reasons," Shepard told them. "But when you signed on with me, you also signed on with each other."

She gave them a moment to consider that. Several heads turned and many eyes glanced about the room. Clearly, everyone was taking a moment to size each other up.

"I realize a lot of you are used to working alone, but you're part of a team now. The person standing beside you – the person you may not like very much right now – that person may end up saving your life before the month is out. Or you may save theirs. This is no time to be screwing around."

She glared at everyone, most especially Jack.

"We are now officially in Council space," Shepard told them. "We're going to make a quick stop by Tunchanka for a few errands," she nodded at Mordin and Grunt in turn. The two were at opposite ends of the room and nodded back at her, then glanced at each other. "Then we're stopping by the Citadel."

"And Bekenstein," Kasumi added.

"I hadn't forgotten," Shepard told her. "Now, our visit to the Citadel is our last stop in any place civilized before we head back into the traverse. If you need something, now's the time to say so. Unless you already have," she added, nodding to Garrus and Thane. "Once we leave the Citadel, our mission begins and we won't me making any more stops for a while."

"Or we might not come back at all," Miranda added softly.

"That's not going to happen," Shepard said firmly.

Several people shifted uncomfortably and looked at the floor.

"That's not going to happen," Shepard said again, infusing her voice with the commander tone. She looked around the room, willing it rather than knowing it to be true. Everyone looked at her. If they didn't believe her, they were doing a good job of hiding it.

"This needs to be done," Shepard said. "The Collectors need to be stopped. But I, for one, have things I want to return to. I don't plan to do die at the Collector's hands again. I'm sure you all feel the same."

Every head nodded.

"Alright then," Shepard said. She clasped her hands behind her back. "EDI, bring up that Cerberus intel."

A holographic image appeared over the table. It looked vaguely like a bug. Everyone in the room turned to look at it. Mordin nodded, his eyes narrowing, while Grunt cocked his head. Neither Thane or Garrus moved a muscle. Miranda lifted her chin.

"This is the dead Reaper that we're going to visit as soon as we leave Council space," Shepard told them. "Cerberus has been trying to extract some kind of IFF device from it. They should have it in hand by the time we get there."

"What's an IFF?" Grunt wanted to know.

"Identify friend-foe program," Mordin explained. "Tells mass relay computers that we are ally, not enemy."

"It's a gate-pass," Tali explained to him. "It will let us through the Omega 4 relay without tearing the ship apart."

"Ah," Grunt nodded. He twitched and scratched at his neck. He'd been doing that a lot lately, Shepard thought. She really did need to get him to Tunchanka to see what was wrong with him before _he_ tore the ship apart.

"Now on the other side of that relay, we might find anything," Shepard said. "So we need to be ready for anything. From here on out, we're going to have debriefing meetings each morning at 0900 hours here in the comm room."

"Surely only Jacob and I need to be here for that," Miranda frowned.

"You're all my squad, so you're all coming," Shepard replied. "Even if it's just to stop by with coffee in hand and get your assignments for the morning. I want everyone to learn how to run the mission critical stations, just in case the crew needs help. We'll assign stations tomorrow morning. Joker and Kelly can listen in from their posts and Kelly can update the crew as to what we're doing. And most of all, I want everyone in physical training every day. That means every damn day you're doing target practice, workouts, and biotic training where applicable. Double time if you're not with me on groundside missions"

Samara nodded her head sagely. Thane and Garrus also nodded. Grunt pounded his fists together and Jack just swore.

"Aw," Kasumi pouted. "I was having fun just reading all day."

"Bring your books on the treadmill," Shepard told her. "But we need to stick with a routine. Some of you have just been hanging around doing nothing. That ends today."

"This is all bullshit," Jack grumbled.

"No," Garrus told her. "This is how the Alliance runs their crews."

"I didn't sign on with the fucking Alliance," Jack snapped at him.

"You signed on with me," Shepard told her. "This is how I run my ship. Or it's how I should have been running it," she added, a little more softly. She lifted her head and raised her voice.

"Everyone be sure to log your training hours and I'll see you in the morning. Miranda, make sure this gets done and get me a list of all mission critical systems and which crew members would be best suited to learn them. Garrus, Mordin, Grunt, come with me. Everyone else, dismissed."

"This is stupid," Jack scowled.

"There's a new biotic training program in the cargo bay," Shepard told Jack, raising an eyebrow. "Think you can beat Miranda's score?"

"You trying to bait me, Shepard?" Jack asked, eyes narrowing.

"Is it working?" Shepard replied. Jack snorted. Shepard just smiled. "Good luck, Jack," she said.

"Hmpf," Jack sniffed, turning to leave the room.

"Commander," Miranda said. "No one has ever beaten my score."

"I did just yesterday," Shepard told her. "Looks like you'll have to try harder to reset your record." Shepard smiled and waved as she left the room. "Have fun training, Miranda."

"Heh," Garrus said as he followed Shepard down the hall. "That played out well."

"Yeah," Shepard said. She turned her head to smile at him. "Thanks Garrus."

"What for?" he asked.

"For what you said on the shuttle back from the Estivanco. It reminded me that this was what I needed to be doing. Thank you."

"You're welcome," Garrus said, his mandibles flaring a little.

Shepard nodded down the corridor.

"Alright, enough talk, men. Or...whatever. We have a planetful of krogans waiting down there."

* * *

"Battlemaster," the krogan scout bowed his head before the seat of power. "An off-world ship has requested permission to send a shuttle to the camp."

Wrex looked up, his red eyes narrowing.

"Who is it? Mercenaries come to re-join the clans?"

"It's humans," the scout answered. "They are from a clan called Cerberus."

"Cerberus," Wrex repeated. The name sounded familiar, though it took him a moment to place the name. It was a clan he'd battled a few years ago. He'd been serving under another battlemaster, then.

"They say they wish to speak with you," the scout went on. "There is one named Shepard who claims to know you."

"Hah!" Wrex said, laughing aloud. "Shepard."

So Shepard had conquered the Cerberus clan and taken control of them. That was fitting, Wrex thought. He had sometimes wondered why she hadn't contacted him in two years. Then again, he had been too busy to contact anyone himself. But if she'd been waging a battle like that, that explained things a little.

Wrex nodded to the scout. "Let them come," he said.

"Humans?" The krogan beside Wrex scowled, his small green eyes alight with distaste. "What right have humans to trespass on Tuchanka? The very air will kill them. Weak creatures, all of them."

"Not Shepard," Wrex said, turning to the other. "She'll surprise you."

"You welcome a female among warriors?" The krogan frowned at him.

"This female _is_ a warrior," Wrex told him. "Like Shiagur of old." He grinned.

"Just you wait, Gatatog Uvenk. Things are never dull with Shepard around."


	56. Head On

_Chapter 56_

_(head on)_

_Happy Labor Day weekend to those who celebrate it. After the holiday weekend is Liara DLC day._

* * *

Shepard took gasping breaths, blinking furiously against the dust in her eyes. Her throat felt like it was seizing up, choked with smog and grit. Her hair whipped about her face as she sagged against the railing before her. The stench in the air was incredible.

"A maw!" Grunt cried behind her. "We took down a thresher maw!" He pounded his fists together in triumph.

"On foot," Garrus added, coughing. He stumbled to Shepard's side, leaning on the railing for support. "_That_ was nothing like old times, Shepard. We should have brought a Mako if we were going to take on a maw."

"Mako?" Grunt snorted. "Where's the honor in that? Hiding in a shell of steel. No, _this_ is what it means to be truly krogan!" He pounded his chest with his fist.

"Given terrain, utility vehicle would have hampered mobility," Mordin pointed out. His face was covered in soot from an indendiary blast that had gone up in his face when he had targeted a charging varren. "Running around more effective. Feeling winded, though."

"Makes you feel alive, eh salarian?" Grunt grinned.

"You okay, Shepard?" Garrus asked, frowning at the commander's silence.

"Yeah, fine," she said. "Barriers," she waved a hand when her throat suddenly went dry. "I'm getting used to the biotics," she managed after a moment. "So yeah, I'm fine."

Garrus looked at her doubtfully, then turned his attention to Mordin and Grunt. Shepard just continued to stare out across the scarred landscape of Tuchanka.

"Damn it, Kaidan," she muttered to herself when she was sure no one was listening. "Wish you could have seen that one."

* * *

"Commander?"

Kaidan blinked and looked up.

"Sir?" he asked.

"I said is that all the information you have on the Reapers?" Anderson held out the datapad and tapped it with his forefinger. Kaidan struggled to bring himself back to the present. His mind had been wandering a lot lately – not to anything in particular, Kaidan thought. Just..wandering.

"Yes, sir," he said. "That's all I have for now."

"That's not much," Anderson said, frowning. "I need to take more to the Council to get their help on this one. Between human colonies disappearing..."

"Have there been more disappearances?" Kaidan wanted to know.

"No," Anderson said. "No, they've stopped for now. But still, it's worrisome. I can't ask for ships to guard our Terminus colonies and ask for ships to search for the Reapers at the same time. I'm torn between funding the Alliance well enough for us to adequately guard the Citadel and the outcry over the taxes needed to maintain our fleet." Anderson sighed. "Planning for a war that no one sees coming is a damned hard business."

Kaidan nodded. He didn't know what to say to that. He supposed that was why Anderson was the politician and he was simply a soldier. "Anything else, sir?" he asked.

"No," Anderson said. "Will you be taking this information to the board tonight?"

"Not tonight," Kaidan said. "Tuesday morning."

"Ah," Anderson said. "That's right – it's Armistice Day weekend. You have plans, no doubt."

"I do," Kaidan said, still amazed that he did. He had spent so many Armistice Days alone – all except for one that had been spent on the Normandy. That night had been a party complete with beers and arm-wrestling with Shepard. It had been Ashley's last night alive, come to think of it. Somehow, that was fitting, if depressing. Kaidan pushed that thought aside.

"I have a friend who's getting married," he told Anderson. "Tonight's his engagement party."

"Good luck to him," Anderson said. "We'll meet again after the weekend, commander."

"Yes, sir," Kaidan said, rising.

"And commander," Anderson said. "I wanted to say that I'm impressed with your reports. You have a gift for words. That's rare in our line of work."

Kaidan shook his head. "Maybe written words, sir," he said. "Not spoken ones." Then he thought of the idiotic email that he had sent to Shepard, the email that was still unanswered.

"Maybe not even that," he said added with a wry smile. "But I'm glad these reports have been of use to you."

"They have been," Anderson replied. "I've been able to gain some ground on this Reaper problem thanks to your research. We'll keep pressing and hopefully, we'll gain some clout with the Council."

Kaidan nodded, but secretly, he was beginning to doubt that the Council would ever do anything. Maybe, he thought, the right answer really was to just take a ship from whomever offered it and ride off to face the problem head on.

As quickly as that thought occurred to him, Kaidan banished it. Surely the Alliance would still find a way.

"Anything else sir?" he asked.

"No. Have a good weekend, commander."

"Sir," Kaidan said, giving the councilor a salute.

"Dismissed," Anderson told him.

* * *

Several hours later, Shepard sat in the mess. She was now showered, dressed and fed, and yet she couldn't quite shake the stench of the thresher maw from her nostrils.

She looked down at her omnitool, her right hand hovering above the keypad. She'd had it open for almost twenty minutes now, but had composed only a few lines. Out of curiosity, Shepard flipped back through several half-finished letters, all archived in her private folder. As she did so, she wondered how, exactly, she had ever become the sort of person who wrote so much drivel.

_Dear Kaidan,  
__I missed you so much today. Well, I miss you every day, but –_

That message had cut off abruptly, as Shepard had suddenly been unable to complete that thought. Her omnitool might be encrypted, but that didn't mean she wanted written evidence of her feelings on it. The other emails were a little less sentimental:

_Dear Kaidan,  
__Remember when I used to terrorize Garrus with my driving in the Mako? You should have seen him today in the Hammerhead. I thought he was going to puke when I jumped us over a lava flow. But we lived – barely._

And then there were the angry emails:

_Kaidan -  
__I nearly died from a rocket today. Garrus is a lousy field medic and Mordin says I'm going to have a permanent scar on my side.  
__You should have been there. Asshole._

Then there was the email from today:

_Dear Kaidan,  
__Saw Wrex today. His excuse for not joining us made a hell of a lot more sense than yours did. He asked after you and wished us good hunting._

That was rather oversimplifying what had happened on Tunchanka, she realized. When they returned from Grunt's rite of passage to the Urdnot camp, they'd found Wrex waiting for them, grinning happily from his garbage heap like some post-apocalyptic king. Shepard had been about to speak to him when EDI's polite voice came over the comm link. Given the rust and rot of their surroundings, EDI's voice seemed almost antiseptic by comparison.

"Killing the thresher maw has produced several breeding requests for Grunt," the AI informed the ground team. "And one for Shepard."

"What?" Shepard gaped, just as Grunt laughed a singular, "Hah!"

From his makeshift throne, Wrex grinned and shook his head.

"Do they think you're a krogan?" Garrus asked, frowning at Shepard.

"They must," Shepard said, trying to hold back laughter. "Or maybe they think human women are like asari and can mate with anything." Garrus appeared a little ill at the thought. Wrex just laughed.

"Should I turn that request down for you?" he asked her, humor glinting in his large, red eyes.

"God yes," Shepard replied.

"Heh," Wrex chuckled, "I imagine Alenko wouldn't approve of your breeding with anyone but him."

And just like that, the stifling air of Tuchanka had felt a little chilly. Shepard blinked at the krogan, stunned. She had entirely forgotten about that incident where Wrex had caught Kaidan about to kiss her down in the cargo bay. She stared into empty space, derailed by that memory.

"Don't tell me the two of you haven't had a child yet," Wrex went on, oblivious to her distress.

"I've been in a coma for the last two years, Wrex," Shepard told him, dragging herself back to the present. "Or had you forgotten?"

"You were out for two years?" the krogan asked. "Your secondary nervous system must have taken a beating."

"Uh, Wrex," Shepard said, shifting uncomfortably, "Humans don't have organ redundancy."

"Huh," Wrex said, considering that. "Then how did you manage to live?"

Shepard sighed. "Short version? Major re-constructive surgery."

"Impressive," Wrex said. "So – can you still breed?"

"I don't know," Shepard had said, eager to end that line of questioning. "Haven't tested it out, exactly."

"Now why's that?" Wrex pressed, frowning at her. "Alenko's not still stuck on those Alliance-clan regulations, is he? I would have figured by now he would have gotten as horny as a varren in a..."

Garrus make a sort of choking sound and Shepard cut Wrex off before he could finish whatever simile he'd been cooking up.

"Again, short version," she interrupted, "is that he's not with us. He took issue with the fact that Cerberus is funding our mission and stuck by the Alliance."

"He left you?" Wrex frowned at her.

"Failed to come with us, yes," Shepard said, lifting her chin. She was still angry at Kaidan, but she found herself defending him all the same. It was one thing for her to think he was a jerk for not being here, another thing entirely for Wrex to say so before others.

"He left his battlemaster?" Wrex asked, his voice incredulous. "His female? Then he's stupider than I took him for."

"Wrex," Shepard snapped. "The Alliance is his clan."

"Why didn't you offer to have his child?" Wrex asked her. "That ought to have kept him with you."

Shepard sputtered something. She couldn't remember what it was now, but the words, "Shut up," and "Doesn't work like that "had been in there somewhere.

"Hmm..." Wrex had said, watching her face. "You can head-butt a warrior like Uvenk and take down a threser maw on foot, but mention of Alenko makes you as jumpy as a pyjack at the sight of garbage. Must be the human in you, Shepard."

"Drop it, Wrex," she snapped. Wrex grinned as though she had just proven his point.

"I should go," she told him. "We have other things to do."

"Sure thing," Wrex had said, shrugging his massive shoulders. "But Shepard, think about breeding before too long. You're getting old."

"You sure do know how to charm the ladies, Wrex," she said, giving him a mock salute. "Must've been why they made you the battlemaster."

Wrex just snorted in reply.

Grunt declined to come with them, instead requesting to spend the evening in the female camp. Shepard had managed to hide her reaction to the idea of a month-old krogan getting free access to the entire Urdnot harem and wished him luck. She had to admit it was highly amusing when Mordin gave the young krogan advice on how to enjoy himself. Grunt listened to Mordin rather eagerly: apparently the fact that the professor was a salarian and a-hormonal did not overshadow the fact that he was quite knowledgeable about krogan reproduction. Garrus had rather loudly ignored the conversation by talking with Wrex about old times. Shepard had listened in with half an ear on each conversation.

After that, she, Garrus and Mordin had gone on to another part of Tuchanka and taken care of Mordin's little problem. _That_ hadn't gone as she'd expected, to say the least. The end result made her jumpy, made her wonder once again if she'd made the right choice or just the sentimental one. Yet, at least they had gotten through that incident with a minimum of bloodshed.

She and Garrus and Mordin had then returned to the ship, leaving Grunt in the Urdnot camp for the night. Garrus and Mordin went their separate ways and Shepard had taken a great deal of pleasure in going up to her quarters and getting clean again. Tuchanka made her feel grimy in a way that even Omega had failed to accomplish. She had then come down to the mess and eaten dinner with some of the squad. Thane and Samara had talked at length about philosophy and Tali had chatted with a few of the techs about the upgrades to the engines. It never failed to amuse Shepard the attention that Tali got from human men – especially the more tech-than-soldier types. Shepard had thought it was simply Tali's intelligence that was the attraction, until she overheard one of the techs sighing, "Those _hips_." Shepard had simply shaken her head and decided that she just didn't get men.

It was a pleasant evening, all in all. On the old Normandy, Shepard had always matched her meal schedule to Kaidan's and the two of them sometimes ate alone, but often had been joined by a small crowd of other crew. Before today, however, Shepard had always eaten separately from the new Normandy crew. She wasn't sure if that was because the Cerberus folks generally avoided her, or she had chosen a strange schedule. She hadn't really noticed until recently, when she realized she needed to get to know these people better.

This evening, Shepard had also found that her distance from the crew had only built her up as a legend in everyone's eyes. At first, the people sitting near her had almost been too nervous to talk to her, but then Tali had shown up. The quarian's cheerful chatter had finally drawn the crew into conversation with the commander. Then a few of the former Alliance folks had come out and asked Shepard about her hunt for Saren. She'd answered their questions, then swiftly turned the conversation away from herself and asked the crew about their histories. The result was that her systems crew had opened up on just about everything and Shepard now felt pretty well up-to-date on what was going on below decks. All she needed now was to check in with Kasumi and she figured she'd be up to speed on all the ship's gossip.

The crew had then dispersed for the night, leaving Shepard at the table alone. She had poured herself a coffee and pulled out her omnitool. Sadly, the quiet hum of the engines and the solitude had failed to give her any insight as to how to get any of these messages to Kaidan - not that she would have had any idea which one to send, even if she had some way to do so.

_Dear Kaidan,  
__Yet another dead end today. After tracking those scientists all over the traverse, we found their bodies. I only wish we could have gotten there sooner._

_Dear Kaidan,  
__I am working with the most diabolical organization ever, I swear to God. The Illusive Prick had the gall to question the way I dealt with our last mission – but he keeps questioning me in emails, since he can't be bothered to explain himself to my face. And I thought the Council was bad._

The problem with these emails, unfortunately, was that Shepard knew her ramblings had gotten into more and more classified data each day. There was also a lot of love-lorn garbage packed into the files as well. She had realized she would never actually send most of these careless, intimate letters. Instead, they had become more like a journal of her travels, a pathetic picture of a lonely, rather unstable woman hiding behind a mask of strength.

_Dear Kaidan,  
__I'm going to have to step it up and be the commander. It's hard because Miranda is not exactly the XO that you were. Or that Presley was, since technically, he was the XO, wasn't he? Anyhow. I miss your competence. Among other things._

_Dear Kaidan,  
__After today, I feel like my brain has gone to pieces. Well, it sort of did, thanks to this crazy Cerberus project thing. I wish you were here to remind me that I'm still myself..._

_Dear Kaidan,  
__Do you have a thing for asari? I mean, you said you didn't, but all guys do, right? Well, today I met this asari and I think I kind of get it now..._

Shepard shivered as she re-read that last one. She didn't want to re-live the memory of Morinth again and hastily moved on to the last message, the one she'd started a few days ago. She might actually send this one – if she could ever find a private extranet terminal and a non-Cerberus account to use:

_Dear Kaidan,  
__We're on our way to the Citadel now. I am going to talk to Anderson, to see if I can convince the Alliance to help us after all.  
Kaidan, I'm worried that I may not be coming back from this last trip - though I'm not about to tell the crew that. I'm also torn between asking you to come with me and wanting you to stay where things are safe.  
__Is there any way I can convince you to forgive me before I go?  
__- Shepard_

"How's it going, commander?"

The drawl of Mess Sergent Gardiner surprised Shepard out of her reverie. She shut down her omnitool and looked up at him with a rather weak smile.

"Well enough," she replied. "You?"

"I'm fine," he said. He nodded at her arm. "You spend an awful lot of time on that omnitool of yours. Mission reports are a bitch, huh?"

"Ah, yeah," Shepard said, her smile becoming brittle.

"Well then," he said, hauling himself into a chair and setting down his dinner, "Allow me to interrupt you if I may." Shepard nodded, then looked at the man's meal in curiosity. It appeared to be leftovers from the past week, all mixed together. Maybe that was the smell she'd mistaken for a thresher maw, she thought.

"Saw you eating with the crew," Gardiner observed.

"Yeah," Shepard replied.

"You know," the mess sergeant went on, "I'm glad you're eating with people. As the commander of a ship, you've got to keep your distance and all. I understand that. But I'm glad you've come down and gotten to know this crew. They're good folks. And it's good to see you're not alone anymore."

There was a world of difference between being alone and eating with people, Shepard thought, but she decided not to point that out.

"Me," Gardiner went on, "I thought you would have found someone to talk to a long time ago. You know, someone like Jacob or Kenneth. Or maybe you prefer asari."

Shepard nearly choked on her coffee. "Are you trying to set me up with someone, Gardiner?"

"Shit no," he said. "Though if I thought you were up for it, I might try my luck and make a play for you myself." He winked at her and Shepard just laughed. Gardiner reminded her very much of the men who used to hang out around the shipping depot on Mindoir, flirtatious humor and all.

"I thought you were interested in Doctor Chakwas," Shepard replied, watching carefully for his reaction. As she suspected, Gardiner blushed a deep red from his throat to the top of his bald head.

"Naw," he said, averting his eyes. "That woman's too smart and straight-laced for the likes of me."

"She is smart," Shepard agreed. "But she might surprise you about the rest of it. I've seen you watching her through that window all evening," she added, nodding at the med bay.

"Damn," Gardiner shook his head. "I should know better than to think you hadn't noticed. You see everything on this ship, don't you?"

Shepard shook her head. "Not everything. Not by a long shot. But I did notice you looking at Chakwas."

"Enough about me, commander," Gardiner coughed. "What about you? Who are you keeping an eye out for?"

"Me?" Shepard shook her head. "No one."

Gardiner didn't look like he was buying it. "Is that because there is no one, or he's just not here? Or she's not here?"

"He," she said, chuckling a little. "It was a he, Gardiner. And he's elsewhere."

"What's he like?" Gardiner asked, taking a bite of his messy leftovers. "A muscles-and-guns marine? Or the quiet type?"

"A marine," Shepard replied. "Not so much the muscles type. I mean, he had them. Muscles that is. He just didn't call much attention to the fact."

"Ah," Gardiner said, "The strong-but-silent type then."

"Not exactly," Shepard said. "He talked – to me, anyway. He was just...cautious."

"Hmmm..." the mess sergeant said. "Well, with how full of fire you are, commander, I can see why that didn't work out."

"Didn't work...?" Shepard broke off, looking at him in surprise. She felt suddenly hurt, though she suddenly felt silly for that.

"I guess maybe it it didn't work out," she said quietly.

"Shit," Gardiner said, "I didn't mean to upset you."

"No," Shepard said, waving a hand. "It's okay. I just ought to get back to work. I have a lot to do."

"Mission reports?" Gardiner asked.

"Among other things," she replied. "I should go."

"Who will talk to me while I eat my dinner then?" Gardiner wanted to know.

"Go talk to Chakwas," Shepard suggested with a smile. Gardiner glanced at the medbay window, where Chakwas was sitting at her computer, her back ramrod straight.

"Naw," he said. "She's busy."

"I don't think any Brit is ever too busy for a cup of tea," Shepard told him. Gardiner didn't say anything, but seemed to consider her words.

"You know," Shepard said. "I really shouldn't encourage fraternization. But I don't think it would hurt to take the doctor a cup of tea. She works awfully hard and I know she'd appreciate it."

"The tea, maybe," the mess sergeant said. "But not some crusty old coot like me."

"Hey," she said with a shrug. "Crusty old coots are better than being alone. Especially ones that can cook. Look Gardiner, if I can branch out and talk to the crew, maybe you should, too."

She gave him a wink, and left him to ponder her suggestion.

* * *

The Illusive Man stared at the holographic display before him, his expression blank.

"I can't figure it out," the voice from the holograph was saying. "He uses encrypted tech and we can't break the pass codes. But the one time we stole a look at his datapad, it was nothing but that new Ascension novel. He's in an average apartment next to the elcor ambassador, but it has security locks on the door like you wouldn't believe. He's in the middle of the goddamn Presidium every day, but so far, we can't find anything on him. Either he really is just an assistant, writing speeches for Anderson, or..."

"Or he's better at keeping secrets than we thought," the Illusive Man finished.

"Should I deal with him, sir?"

"In what way?" the Illusive Man said, raising an eyebrow. "In the way you dealt with Kahoku? That was a mess and you know it. We don't need any more dead officers that could be traced back to us."

The Illusive Man took a drag from his cigarette and blew out a line of smoke. "Commander Alenko is low on my list of concerns right now. Besides, I want to keep him around. He's something of a backup plan, as it were. He's earnest, he's skilled, and he's human." The Illusive Man considered the cigarette in his hand and added in an undertone, "He also has ties to Shepard than run deeper than I suspected at first."

"Sir?"

The Illusive Man lifted his head and spoke up. "Commander Alenko might – under the right circumstances – be persuaded to join us. Shepard might convince him, but we'll have to convince her, first. That would be quite the coup, would it not? The both of them on our side? So for now, I want him alive."

"Yes, sir," came the reply. "Your orders?"

"Our primary mission will soon be entering a delicate phase. As much as I value him as a potential recruit, Commander Alenko could become a distraction at this point. I need you to be ready to keep him busy when I give the word."

"Busy? Busy how?"

"Tied up in meetings," the Illusive Man said, flicking ash into his ashtray. "Forced to submit reports on his findings about the Collectors. I'm sure you can think of something. Keep him on the Presidium and out of the Wards – and away from Anderson's office."

"It's Armistice Day weekend," the voice replied. "That's going to make it difficult..."

"Just do it."

"Wouldn't it be easier to keep him quiet in another way? Not...killing him maybe. But we could have him transferred – demoted even."

"No," the Illusive Man said, sharply. "At best, he'll alert the Council to the Reaper threat. If he does that, then he'll pull off what none of the rest of us have been able to accomplish. For that alone, I want him where he is and I want his reputation intact. At the worst, he's curious about us and Shepard, but that's not going to get him anywhere – not right now. Just be ready to keep him out of the Wards. I have a certain person coming to the Citadel that I don't want him to run into."

"And who is that?"

"I think you know her," the Illusive Man said, a smile curling on his lips. "A certain Commander Shepard is on her way back to Council space. Block her access to the Presidum when she arrives on the Citadel, admiral. I'm sure you can manage some sort of military oversight regarding her paperwork. Just make sure she stays in the Wards and Alenko stays on the Presidium. That ought to keep everything running as it should. As Shepard picks up speed, I need to keep her path clear from any...stumbling blocks."

"Understood, sir," came the reply.

The Illusive Man blew out a cloud of smoke and grinned as the holograph flickered away.


	57. Engagement

_Chapter 57_

_(engagement)_

_**Author's Note:** Some of you have asked me if I'm planning to continue on into post ME2 territory. I've thought about it. I have a handful of post-ME2 chapters – mostly complete and utter fluff and smut – for reunions between Shepard and Kaidan. But they're not really in any order. They sort of need a DLC to go into – hint, hint, BioWare?_

_Playing the Lair of the Shadow Broker DLC made me realize again that the "canon" is something I like to avoid messing with too much. That's the trouble with fanfic, in my opinion: you're always waiting for the canon or flying in the face of it. For example, my little thing about Liara and the dogtags – I like my version better, but turns out it's not quite what happened. Though I was stoked at how close I got to the truth. (Yes!)_

_So here's what I am doing: I'm working on my own story. This fanfic experience has inspired me to continue writing action/adventure/romance and publish it serially online. I'm hoping that as I finish up this Valkyrie saga (and there is a ways to go yet), that I will have that new story up and running. I'll keep you posted as to when it goes up. What I can tell you so far is that it's a sort of post-apocalyptic western – kind of steampunk, but...well, I'll just let you see. And yes, there is romance - and guns. _

_If you were just here for the Kaidan, that's fine, but if you've liked my writing for it's own sake, feel free to subscribe to my story if you haven't already and I'll keep you posted as to the upcoming original work. ;)_

* * *

Over the pounding of the bass, Kaidan could hear almost nothing. His head felt like it was splitting in two. He watched Hinds as the man's mouth moved, as Hinds waved a hand at Dean and Katie, who were staring at one another with an adoration so warm in insular that it was liked they'd wrapped a blanket around themselves that kept out everything else in the room. Kaidan doubted they were listening to whatever it was Hinds was saying either.

Behind Hinds stood Lisa. Kaidan had avoided the doctor ever since he'd walked into the club. Thankfully, she'd avoided him as well and they'd politely pretended as if the other didn't exist. With the noise and the crowds, that wasn't too hard. Clearly sentimentality had won out over sense with Dean and Katie and they'd decided to have their engagement party in the club they'd first danced in. Kaidan wished that they had realized that an Armistice Day engagement party was likely to be crushed among the many other people who had simply come to dance.

Kaidan held his glass in his hand, standing awkwardly by the bar, wondering how long, exactly, he should wait until he gave the couple a congratulations and then slipped out. Between the headache and the pointed avoidance of Lisa, Kaidan had no desire to stick around. Finally, mercifully, Hinds' lifted his thin tube of a glass and everyone did the same.

"Cheers," Kaidan muttered when everyone else began to lower their drink. He had no idea what Hinds had said for the toast, nor why it had taken so long to give. Dean and Katie took one sip and then headed out to the dance floor. Lisa disappeared into the crowd, and Hinds turned suddenly to Kaidan and shouted something at him.

"What?" Kaidan shouted back.

"I said, "Hey," Hinds clarified.

"Oh," Kaidan replied. "Yeah."

"So," Hinds said, shouting loud enough to be heard now, "Sorry about that last time."

"Last time?" Kaidan asked. He tried to remember, then suddenly did. "Oh, right."

"When you threw Shaw on the floor," Hinds said. "Never seen that kind of shit before."

"Yeah," Kaidan nodded. "Sorry about that."

"What?"

"Sorry about..." Kaidan shook his head. This was getting to be ridiculous. He could scarcely hear what Hinds was saying now.

"It's alright," Kaidan said, now deciding that being polite to Dean and Katie now mattered less than getting out of the club before his head exploded. "Look, I've got to go – headache."

"What?" Hinds shouted.

"Headache," Kaidan shouted back and pointed at his temple.

"Oh," Hinds shouted. "That a biotic thing?"

"Yeah," Kaidan nodded. "I'll talk to you later."

"Sure," Hinds replied. "Hey, wait," he reached for Kaidan's arm. Kaidan turned, trying not to feel dizzy when the strobe lights from the back of the room suddenly shuddered on.

"...so, that okay?"

"What?" Kaidan blinked. He truly hadn't heard a word of what Hinds was saying.

"Do you mind," Dean shouted, emphasizing each word.

"Mind what?" Kaidan frowned. "Look, I'm sorry, but this headache is getting pretty bad."

"Lisa," Hinds shouted. Kaidan frowned.

"What?" he shouted back.

"Are you guys still..." Kaidan didn't catch the rest, but he guessed at it all the same.

"No," he said, shaking his head. "No, just friends."

"What?" Hinds shouted. "Do you mind if I..." Kaidan lost the rest of the sentence as Hinds turned to look after the doctor. He waited until Hinds looked back at him to clearly and loudly say:

"Not at all. She's a nice girl."

"What?"

"Yes," Kaidan shouted. "You should ask her."

"Oh," Hinds' face fell. "I thought so."

"No," Kaidan said, half-laughing now in spite of his headache. Clearly this music made communication of any sort impossible. He had no idea how Hinds planned to say anything meaningful to Lisa over the noise. "We're not dating," he shouted as loudly as he could.

"Oh," Hinds said, brightening. "I mean, I didn't want to..." Whatever he was planning to say was lost to the screaming of the crowd as a slim asari took her place at the DJ's booth and every spotlight in the place swung to her. Kaidan decided he'd had enough.

"Be good to her," he said, waving at Hinds. Hinds waved back, then immediately turned away, presumably in search of Lisa. Kaidan chuckled to himself and headed into the dancing crowd.

_Be good to her_, he thought wryly. _As if I'm one to talk_.

Kaidan didn't see Dean or Katie in the crush, but decided it didn't matter. He reached the doors and slipped out of the club into the Kithoi Ward. A long line of people had formed down the block, and the krogan bouncer at the door let a few people go in at Kaidan's exit. Someone waved at Kaidan as he walked by, but then was gone so quickly that Kaidan didn't register anything more than red hair. He wondered who it might have been, but shrugged it off. Out in the cool, blue light of the Ward, Kaidan felt his headache ease a little, but it didn't go away. He looked around, then fired up his omnitool.

Kaidan sent a quick email to Dean and Katie, thanking them for the evening, congratulating them on their engagement, apologizing for ducking out early, and asking them if he could please send them off when their shuttle left for earth. That done, he took a quick peek at his mail. No reply from Shepard - of course. With a sigh, Kaidan headed off down the Ward.

As he walked along, Kaidan felt his headache ease. He walked slowly, listening in on conversations as he passed, stopping now and again to take in a particularly nice view of the Presidium ring in the distance. At one point, two krogan gave Kaidan a one over and began to follow him. He simply stopped, looked over his shoulder at them, and allowed his biotics to flare warningly down his arms. That stopped the pair cold and they turned and walked the other way. Kaidan wasn't sure if it was the biotics or the fact that the flaring lit up his Alliance utilities and showed off the pistol he'd strapped to his hip. Either way, the result was that the rest of his walk was uneventful.

It took Kaidan a little over two hours to reach the Presidium from the club, and when he finally came to the elevator that led up the Ward arm to the ring, he realized that he had never actually walked so far along Citadel before. It was an entirely different experience when walking – a much rawer, more vibrant sort of place than he'd imagined. Somehow, staying up in the Presidium all the time, running on the treadmill and weightlifting in the morning, then working behind a desk for the rest of the day, seemed quite sequestered and cut off from the rest of the races living on the same station. Funny how he'd never noticed that before. The Citadel was more than a city, he thought. It was more like five cities all loosely connected to the Presidium, each with their own unique atmosphere. He would really have to visit them more often.

As the elevator doors opened, Kaidan walked out onto the Presidium and straight into a full patrol of C-Sec officers. They walked right past him and packed into the elevator. Kaidan heard one say into his comm, "Squad 5 heading to the Kithoi Ward checkpoint." The comm crackled in response as the doors slid shut. Kaidan scarcely noticed as he blinked against the bright lights of the perpetual daytime of the Presidium. He was glad he'd invested in blackout blinds for his apartment, because he was definitely in need of some rest after that long walk.

* * *

"What do you mean he won't see me?"

Shepard glared at the officious turian who stood before her, her arms folded over his chest. Behind him was a whole pack of turian C-Sec officers, and a few human officers as well.

"Ma'am it's Armistice Day weekend," the turian said. "Councilor Anderson won't be in. The human offices and embassies are all closed and the Presidium in general has just been locked down to all but authorized personnel. We've receieved word about possible geth infiltration during the festivities."

"Geth," Shepard said, blandly. "Do I _look_ like a geth to you?"

"No ma'am," the turian replied. "But we're also concerned about pro-human and anti-human groups coming into conflict over the weekend."

"So what does that have to do with me?" Shepard wondered aloud. "I'm usually one for keeping the peace."

"Look," the officer said with a flare of his mandibles. "My database is showing you as a Cerberus agent. I could arrest you on the spot."

"She's Commander Shepard," Garrus snapped from behind Shepard's shoulder. "Or isn't that in your databases as well?"

"It is," the turian replied in a bored tone, looking Garrus over, "But that doesn't signify much. Either you figured out how to hack the system or you're undercover for the Council. Neither case, however, gives you access to the Presidium or any other Ward but Zakera."

"Just let me go see the Council and I can get this all figured out," Shepard told him. "They saw me the last time I was here."

The turian just laughed. "Look lady, whether you are Shepard or aren't, doesn't matter to me. I go by the records, and they you're to stay here in Zakera Ward under Bailey's watch."

"For God's sake," Shepard muttered as Garrus stepped in and pointed a finger at the turian.

"Can't you think for yourself?" he asked. "This is Commander Shepard, come to talk to the human councilor."

"So?" the officer shrugged. "If I don't have orders otherwise, I don't do nothing."

"You damn C-Sec officers," Garrus shorted. "Always hiding behind your uniforms."

"At least my uniform isn't tarnished, Officer Vakarian," the turian replied. Shepard had to step in to keep Garrus from charging the guy.

"Calm down!" she snapped at her friend. "He's not worth it. Alright," she said, turning to the turian. "Can I see Captain Bailey then? Maybe he can help us out."

"He won't be in until tomorrow morning, and no, I'm not telling you where he lives."

"Okay," Shepard said. She held a hand up to Garrus. "It's okay. We can sort this out tomorrow. In the meantime, I'll send Anderson a message. Maybe we can work that out while we look for your friend."

"Right," Garrus said tightly, still glaring at the turian.

"Okay, let's go," Shepard said, waving Garrus away.

"Damn it, Shepard," Garrus grumbled, looking over his shoulder. "Those idiots are..."

"Can you find Fade?" Shepard cut across his griping to ask him.

"I think so, yeah," Garrus replied. "Sources say he operates out of this Ward. It's one of the rougher ones."

"Okay, good," Shepard replied. "Because I want to get out of here as soon as possible."

"Why's that?" Garrus asked, lifting his chin.

"Because we've got a Cerberus ship docked here and the Council told me to stay off the Citadel. I don't want to push my luck."

"Cerberus probably has agents here," Garrus told her.

"I don't doubt it," Shepard replied. "That's what's got me nervous." she frowned, then turned to Garrus.

"What about you?" she asked. "You still set on this plan of yours?"

"Your people have a saying," Garrus finished, lifting his plated chin into the air. "'An eye for an eye; a life for a life.' Well, Sidonis owes me ten lives, and I plan to collect."

"Garrus," Shepard said slowly, not sure how to respond to that. "You know, you're taking that saying a little out of context."

He shrugged. "You know what I mean."

"The point of that saying is that people aren't supposed to go overboard in their revenge," Shepard said, "that they're supposed to stop at simply taking what was taken..."

"That's what I plan to do," Garrus told her evenly.

"But that saying is from the first half of a very old human book," Shepard went on. "And later someone added that you ought to just let revenge go: it doesn't help anyone to hang onto anger."

"You're one to talk, Shepard," Garrus snapped at her. "You've never been betrayed."

"Haven't I?" she frowning. "Hell, Garrus, I'm working with Cerberus because the Alliance won't help me."

"That's not the same," he said, his voice growing angry. "You didn't look at the body bags of ten good men, lying dead at your feet because you couldn't be there to help them." The vehemence in his voice made Shepard blink in surprise.

"Okay," she said, holding up her hands. "We're here, aren't we? But Garrus, think long and hard about whether this is really what you want."

"It is," he said, firmly.

"Is it?" she asked sadly.

"Do you want to help me, Shepard?" he asked her.

"Of course," she replied.

"Well then," he said. "This is what I need to be ready for our mission."

"Garrus," Shepard said, softly. "Revenge isn't going to end the grief."

Garrus just glared at her, Shepard sighed and shook her head.

"Alright," she said. "Let's go."


	58. Moving On

_Chapter 58_

_(moving on)_

_**Author's Note**: Okey-dokey, so I'm gonna change my tune a little here. I'm going to go a little off canon in the end of this story here – just a little – in order to give it the kind of romantic ending that *I* want it to have. Because oh my goodness, how the heck are we supposed to have a romance that has NO resolution/reunion to it? Alright. That's all I'm gonna say about that. In the meantime, here's some stuff I wrote months ago and have been waiting to finally get up._

_**Author's Other Note:** Kudos to chemlight of the KAAS for her observation about Kaidan's special type of badassness. It was too perfect not to use somewhere._

_**Author's Final Note:** Why does everyone want femshep? They just do, don't they?_

* * *

"Garrus!" Chloe Michel cried, throwing her arms wide and giving the turian a great hug. Garrus started, then gave the doctor an awkward pat on the back.

"It's so good to see you," she said, her French accent thick as she smiled at him. "And Commander Shepard! Such a pleasure." She grinned as she shook Shepard's hand, then turned back to Garrus expectantly.

Shepard smiled in amusement at Garrus' obvious puzzlement. This had been a good idea, she decided. Garrus had been quiet and reclusive ever since they had finished dealing with Sidonis and Fade. Shepard felt that the decision he had made there was the right one, but she could tell that Garrus wasn't so sure. So as long as they were stuck with one another in the Zakera Ward until they heard back about Bailey, Shepard had no intention to spend her time watching Garrus brood. A brooding turian, she decided, was far too much angry plated muscle for a woman to feel comfortable aorund. And given the way the doctor was animatedly chattering, Shepard felt she'd finally found a way to draw Garrus out of the shell he'd retreated into recently.

"I had the pleasure of seeing one of your crew, the other day," Doctor Michel was saying brightly. "A...Aleeno?" Is that it?"

"Alenko?" Garrus supplied as Shepard blinked, suddenly drawn into the conversation.

"Kaidan was here?" she asked, sharply. "Where?"

"That's it. Alenko." Doctor Michel nodded. "He was picking up one of my assistants for a date."

Shepard felt as though the floor had fallen out from under her.

"He _what_?" she practically shouted.

Garrus' head swung from the red-headed human to the blond one.

"He..." Shepard fought to get herself under control. She realized the doctor was staring at her and she could think of nothing to say to smooth this over.

"When was this?" she asked, trying for a nonchalant tone.

"A few weeks ago," the doctor said, now clearly a little rattled. "He's come here before, of course, only I don't know if..."

"I see," Shepard said, cutting her off swiftly. "Well," she said, with a forced smile, "Garrus, don't let me keep you. I'm sure you want to get caught up with your friend. I'm going to...go pick up that mod...thing I saw in the shop outside. I'll meet you back at C-Sec."

"Shepard..." Garrus began, looking at her in concern – or maybe it was panic. It was hard to tell.

"Give me a minute," she told him, then she walked out into the ward, scarcely noticing where she was going.

* * *

_What the HELL?_ Shepard's mind seemed to scream. She gritted her teeth, staring straight down the promenade, not noticing the people who got out of her way with nervous glaces.

So Kaidan had gone out with this doctor of his _after_ Horizon? Only a few weeks ago? Shepard briefly considered going back in and grilling the doctor for more information, but she simply couldn't bring herself to do so. If Kaidan had moved on, then he'd moved on. Then again, she thought, wildly, maybe he hadn't moved on. There could always be another explanation as to why he took the doctor out for a date after he had known that Shepard was alive.

Shepard scowled. She couldn't think of another explanation. But really, why should she? Kaidan had given her nothing to go on there. He had said he didn't know about the future. He had been as vague as possible in that stupid email of his and now this revelation from the doctor had clarified things a bit.

Shepard stomped down the hallway, desperately wishing she could just shoot something. She had a sudden desire to find a public extranet terminal and reply to Kaidan's email at last - to give him a good piece of her mind. She was sure she had a few good messages on her omnitool that she could send to him. Several had used the words 'Hey bastard' as the salutation, so that might be a good place to start. But then again, if Cerberus ever found her message, they'd then know how easily Kaidan could hurt her. Somehow, showing that side of herself to the Illusive Man just made her bristle with wounded pride.

"You okay, Shepard?" Garrus' turian twang sounded beside her ear.

"Fine," Shepard said, curtly, not breaking her stride.

"Shepard, what Doctor Michel said that Kaidan..."

"Garrus, I don't want to hear it."

"Don't you?"

"No."

"If he was here recently, might be here on the Citadel," Garrus told her. "Maybe you could ask Anderson..."

"As if Anderson would tell me anything," Shepard said, bitterly. "Just drop it, Garrus."

"Commander Shepard," a throaty voice crackled over the comm. Shepard didn't stop walking as she clicked open the comm link.

"Shepard here," she said shortly. "What is it, Krios?"

"Bailey just got to his desk. I would speak to him, myself, but I would greatly appreciate..."

"I'm on my way," Shepard replied. "Shepard out."

"Thank you," Thane's voice replied politely, and the comm cut out.

"We really going to help that...assassin?" Garrus asked, mandibles flaring as he followed Shepard down the hallway.

"I am," Shepard replied. "But if you don't want to come with me..."

"I'm coming with you," Garrus told her, firmly.

Shepard shrugged by way of reply. Garrus watched her closely.

"You really okay, Shepard?" he asked again.

"I'll be fine," she replied. "Just realizing that I could have done with a lot less brooding and a lot more action if it's come to this." She let out a sigh and shook her head. "Let's just talk to Bailey, take care of Krios' little problem, and see if we can't talk to Anderson before we leave. If not, screw Anderson and the Council."

"And Kaidan?" Garrus asked.

"Kaidan can wait," Shepard snapped. "He's certainly made _me_ wait," she grumbled in an undertone.

Shepard was so intent on striding on down the hallway that she entirely missed Garrus's small, hopeful smile behind her back.

* * *

Thane's great dark eyes seemed to bore into Shepard's own. He reached up and brushed a strand of hair behind her ear. Shepard shivered. Kaidan used to do that, she thought, absently. It was hard not to be aroused by the touch, even as she immediately felt awkward that she was.

_It should be Kaidan,_ she thought to herself. _Damn him for not being here. Damn him for not caring anymore._

"Thank you, siha," Thane murmured, bowing his head to her. "You have done a great thing for me."

Behind her, Shepard heard Garrus growl a little. Thane looked at the turian, gave him a curt nod, then walked away to join his son, who was standing a short distance away near Captain Bailey's desk.

"Do you always let strange men touch you like that, Shepard?" Garrus snapped the moment the assassin was out of earshot.

"Of course not," Shepard said, pulling her hair back over her ear just to try and erase the touch.

"I'm surprised you didn't slap him."

"I would have. It just surprised me."

"And what does 'siha' mean, anyhow?" Garrus asked her.

"No idea," she replied.

Garrus glared after the drell. "Just...watch your step with him, Shepard," he said.

"I think he's proving trustworthy," Shepard said, "But yes, I fully plan to keep an eye on him."

"How close an eye?" Garrus grumbled. His voice was low, but Shepard caught it all the same. Her gaze swung to his, and he quickly looked away, mandibles flaring.

"Come on, Garrus," she said, half laughing, "You don't actually think I'm interested in Thane?"

Garrus glared at her. "Aren't you?" he snapped.

"No! I mean, he's got impressive...skills." She gave a half smile in the drell's direction. "But that's about it."

"Really? Because Kelly said..." Garrus stopped suddenly, then looked at Shepard guiltily.

"Kelly said what, Garrus?" Shepard asked, her voice holding a slight warning.

"She said that you thought Thane was...sexy," Garrus said the word like it was something slimy he didn't want to touch.

Shepard shook her head, laughing. "I swear, that woman..." She looked back to Garrus, eyes narrowing. "I believe it was _Kelly_ who said that Thane was sexy. I told her to shape up and act like a professional. We're not Alliance, but still, we have standards. Well, _I_ have standards, anyhow."

"But Kelly said..." Garrus stopped himself again.

"Yes, Garrus?"

"Kelly said that you told her you liked dangerous men," Garrus said, watching Shepard closely.

"You know, I never knew you were such a gossip, Garrus."

"So you _do_ like dangerous men," Garrus pressed.

"If you must know," Shepard said, lightly, "I told her that I meet a lot of dangerous men in my line of work, but I _also_ told her that Thane wasn't my type. She asked who my type was..." Shepard broke off, frowning.

_My type turned out to be just as much a jackass as my boyfriend and all the guys in Basic_, she thought, suddenly furious. _I thought I'd learned something over the years, but apparently not._

Garrus lifted his chin at once. "Let me guess," he said, his voice disgusted. "Kaidan?"

Shepard sighed in spite of herself.

"Kaidan wasn't dangerous, Shepard," Garrus said, glaring at her.

Shepard turned to him and raised an eyebrow.

"Okay," he amended, "He could fight, but he wasn't really..." Shepard raised both her eyebrows now.

"What?" she asked, her voice a little hard. "He made his first kill at seventeen. He was a special forces marine, a tech expert, and a stable L2 biotic, - one of the strongest human biotics in the Alliance, I might add. He could toss a whole room of asari commandos on their asses. He rigged a bomb out of an engine core. The man was every kind of deadly that there is, Garrus. You should know that. You fought by his side for almost a year."

"Yeah, but that was just on the battlefield."

Shepard snorted. "I realize some people think you have to act tough to be tough, but Kaidan was every inch a badass."

"Bad _ass_?" Garrus repeated. Clearly his translator was not making sense of the word.

"A mature, reticent badass," Shepard went on, half to herself. "But a badass all the same"

Garrus stared at her without speaking. Shepard tried to push the thought of Kaidan and his badass ways aside. Apparently, the mature, quiet side of him hadn't made up for the fact that he would gladly move on to the next woman when things didn't go his way. She just felt sick at having been his next-to-most-recent fling.

"Anyhow," she said, lifting her chin. "My point is that Kelly got it wrong. Thane's nice enough - for a guy with a dark past who is trying to make amends, but I'm not really into..." she broke off, uncertain how to explain.

"Aliens?" Garrus snapped, his voice sharp and yet hurt at the same time.

Shepard looked up at him, surprised at the bitterness in his tone. Garrus gazed at her a long moment – a long, telling moment – then sharply looked away.

And suddenly, Shepard understood.

_Oh, my God_, she thought, as the truth suddenly dawned. A moment later she wished she could forget it, push it all away. She had guessed, but not really considered. She'd managed to avoid looking it in the face, but now...

"_You have a really good read on people when they're dealing with each other, huh skipper? But not so much when they're dealing with you." _

Ashley's words came back to her from across the years, suddenly startling her with their accuracy. She really _didn't_ pick up on things like this, Shepard thought, and least, not in regards to herself. Call it Puritan modesty, but she'd always gone out of her way to avoid noticing anything resembling sexual interest most of her life. Only in those early days of Basic had she allowed herself to see it. If you didn't notice sexual attraction, you couldn't return it, thus couldn't be unprofessional and act on it. Of course, that hadn't worked so well with Kaidan, she thought. And, it seemed, it hadn't worked so well with Garrus, either.

_Oh, my God,_ Shepard thought, remembering her earlier conversation with Garrus about Kaidan. No wonder Garrus had gotten so angry. And then, before that, there had been all those arguments and moments of flirting that had happened between her and Kaidan when they thought Garrus wasn't listening in. But he probably had been. She simply couldn't imagine what she'd been putting Garrus through – and she hadn't even known.

At what point, she wondered, had she said or done anything to encourage this cross-species crush? She hadn't intended it at all, though not because Garrus wasn't human. That wasn't it, she told herself. Even now, looking at him, she had to admit there were a few physical features that gave her pause. He was tall, which she liked, and strong, which was comforting. She had to admit that his voice was quite...nice. Not as nice as Kaidan's, but it was deep and thrumming. But then she shook herself. Garrus also had fangs – and the span of his hips...

Shepard caught herself looking Garrus over and froze. Garrus apparently saw it too, because he suddenly stiffened. Shepard was sure she blushed. They just stood there, at the edge of the C-Sec offices, where the customs area met the main shopping district of the Zakera Ward, looking at each other in awkward silence.

_Oh my God_, Shepard thought again. _I am such an idiot._

She took a deep breath, then decided to go for a direct approach.

"How do you want to play this Garrus?" she asked.

"Play?"

"What do you want me to do?"

"Ah," he seemed to cough and laugh at the same time. "Well, what do you want Shepard? I mean, now that you know about Kaidan and that doctor, maybe you're..." He stared at the floor for a moment, then lifted his eyes to hers.

"...ready to move on?"

Shepard stared at him, blankly. Garrus chuckled slightly and lightly touched the broken side of his face.

"Unless you're not interested in men with scars?" he added, softly.

Shepard knew it wasn't fair of her, but her mind instantly went to a certain pair of scarred lips that she had once kissed. Kaidan's lips had been criss-crossed with fine, white lines that stood out against his tanned skin. She had loved those scars - those lips. It had amazed her that something so soft could hold evidence of such strength. In that respect, his lips had been like Kaidan as a whole, she thought.

Shepard's eyes were full of pain as she gazed back at Garrus – at her dear friend, who had been there beside her throught so many battles, even the ones where Kaidan had been absent.

And she found she could think of nothing to say.

"Damn," Garrus murmured. "I guess that's my answer right there."

"Garrus..." Shepard choked out, suddenly feeling weary and sad all at once. "I didn't mean to..."

She felt her heart breaking for him – for both of them.

"Shit," she said softly.

Garrus just swallowed and looked away.

_God, what a mess_, Shepard thought. This wasn't what she wanted. She wished she'd never..._what_, exactly? she wondered. What had she done to encourage this? _B__ut I _didn't_ encourage it,_ a part of her mind protested. Then again, she realized she hadn't exactly _dis_couraged it. But then, she hadn't exactly counted on interest from a turian. She was used to avoiding the advances of human men, but aliens – first Liara, now Garrus... That really threw her. She'd have been flattered by the attention – if it wasn't just so awful to turn down a friend.

"Shit," Shepard said again, running a hand through her hair.

"Just stop, Shepard," Garrus said, quietly.

"Well," she said, pursing her lips, and attempting to make a joke of it, "You know, there's still Kelly. She's had a thing for you since you got on board."

"What?" Garrus turned to her, startled.

"Yeah, and I probably shouldn't go gossiping," Shepard added, "but Doctor Michel seemed pretty into you, too. Why do you think I suggested that we visit?"

Garrus glared at her, his mandibles flaring. "I don't have some _human_ fetish, Shepard," he snapped at her, his voice angry. "I don't even like... I mean, I wanted..." He broke off and Shepard found she had no idea what to say.

"Shit," she muttered again. "I'm sorry."

"So," Garrus said, laughing humorlessly. "I guess Kaidan was the only choice for you all along, huh?"

Shepard's gaze flew to his, her eyes wide and startled. "What do you mean?"

"Well," Garrus said, looking at her in disgust. "You're still waiting on him, aren't you? Even though he went off with some doctor and..." The turian made a gesture Shepard had never seen before, but even without a translation for it, she realized at once it was lewd.

"Hey!" she said, growing angry. "You don't know that! He might have been..." But words failed her, because she just didn't know. Then she saw the bleakness in Garrus' eyes and could go no further. She shook her head and sighed.

"Damn," she said, softly, "we're quite a pair, aren't we?"

Garrus stiffened at her words. "Not quite a pair," he murmured.

She winced. "Sorry Garrus," she told him. "I didn't mean a _pair_ pair. Just a pair... Shit." She winced again at her own lack of eloquence.

They stood there in silence for a minute, as the crowds in the Wards passed on by and the C-Sec officers went about their business.

Finally, Garrus shifted and spoke. "So you're going to take your chances on Kaidan?" he asked, softly.

Shepard sighed. "No," she said, burying her fingers in her hair. "Maybe. I don't know. I don't know anything anymore. Maybe Kaidan and me was just the mission, you know? Just me needing someone – anyone. And if he's found someone else..." She broke off, let her hand drop. "Damn it, you don't need to hear this."

Garrus turned his gaze to the Wards. He didn't say anything. He didn't have to. Because finally, Shepard knew exactly what he wasn't saying.

"God, Garrus," she murmured. "I'm..."

"Don't," he said, flatly.

"I _am_ sorry," she snapped at him. "Look, like you said with Sidonis: life isn't black and white, it's gray. And this – all of this – is really damn gray, Garrus."

"Yeah," he said, bitterly, "It is." He paused a moment, then, still looking at the Wards said, "Shepard, would you...?"

"Yeah?" she prompted when he didn't go on.

"Never mind..."

"Come on, Garrus," she said. "What?"

He blinked, narrowing his eyes at some spot far beyond her vision. "If it weren't for Kaidan..." He trailed off.

"Would I have...?" She trailed off as well, and Garrus said nothing.

She considered that a long while, looking out at the view.

"I guess that's my answer," Garrus murmured, his voice bitter.

"That's _not_ your answer," Shepard said, frowning at him. "That's me thinking. And honestly, I don't know. I mean..." She thought about it a moment, then decided to say exactly what she thought. She owed Garrus that much, she figured.

"Truthfully, Garrus, I think you and I are more alike than I realized at first. And I think that's what's made us such good friends. We see the bad stuff in the galaxy and we just want to rush in a fix it. But then there's the fact that..."

"I'm a turian," he said, his voice cold.

"I can't say I hadn't noticed," Shepard said, giving him a wry smile. "What I was going to say was that in other ways, the fact that we're so alike means we both go off the deep end at the same time. It makes us _both_ the unstable one. Much as it annoyed me at times, Kaidan's caution grounded me. He saw things a little differently that I did. I respected that. Not that I don't respect you. I just - God, I'm making this worse."

Garrus said nothing.

"I won't pretend that I'm into turians, Garrus," Shepard told him, now looking at the wards. "You have a nice voice."

"A nice _voice_?" Garrus blinked at her.

She shrugged. "Yeah. But I happen to have a serious weakness for human men."

Garrus cast a sidelong glance at her.

"I know," she said. "Go figure. They're complete idiots. But you can't argue with several millennium of evolution and hormones. I have this weakness for chest hair."

"Chest...hair?" Garrus asked, as if this was something he didn't want to think about. Still, he almost sounded like he was laughing a little.

"I know," Shepard said. "What's a woman to do?"

When Garrus just shook his head, she gave him a tight smile. "Look, Garrus, I'm flattered. But, damn it, I'd make you miserable. I'm a handful on a good day. When I stop acting like a commander and unload on somebody, it's a scary, scary sight."

Garrus considered that. "You never acted like anything but a commander around me," he said at last.

She shrugged. "No," she said simply.

"But you did with..." He didn't get any further.

"What do you think it was that Kaidan and I fought about?" she asked him.

"I thought it was because you didn't get along."

"Actually," she said softly, "It's because he got so close. I let him see me as...me."

Shepard swallowed, then smiled at him ruefully. "Really, Garrus, I don't think you really want what you think you want from me."

"That's not fair, Shepard," he told her. "You don't know what I want."

"You're right," she said, holding her hands up. "I'm sorry. I don't know. About anything."

"Except that you don't want me," Garrus said.

She looked at him, certain that her eyes were full of pain, but surely not as much pain as his.

"So what is it that you wanted, Garrus?" she asked him quietly.

Garrus just looked away, his eyes narrowed and unfocused. He fell silent for a long time, then finally his mandibles flared.

"I guess I just wanted to mean as much to you as you mean to me," he said at last.

Shepard swallowed and let out a heavy breath.

"Garrus," she said, "You mean a lot to me. You're my best friend..."

"After Kaidan," he interrupted shortly.

Shepard found that she couldn't deny it. Even now, she thought, she couldn't deny it. Kaidan had been closer to her than anyone had ever been. And whatever revelations the day had brought, she knew that nothing would erase the memories of him from her mind.

"I'm sorry," she whispered.

Garrus shook his head. "Can we just forget this whole thing?" he asked, his voice nearly breaking on the words.

"Doubtful," Shepard replied, trying her best to collect herself. If Garrus lost it, she was sure that she would, too. "But we can move on, if you like."

"Yeah," Garrus said, stiffly. "Let's...do that."

"Okay," Shepard said, softly. She turned to him and gave him a weak smile. "Let's just move on."


	59. Flashbacks: Armistice Days

_Chapter 59_

_(Armistice Days)_

* * *

_**Author's Note:** What is it about Garrus chapters? I keep losing all momentum whenever I hit them. It doesn't help that I'm trying to get my own project going and am completely distracted by it. _

_So anyhow, so you knew that Kyrie has her moments of being messed up. I hope you don't hold it against her._

* * *

_(flashback: Armistice Day, twelve years ago)_

Shepard leaned over the toilet and heaved once again. It felt like her stomach was going to come up through her throat and out into the bowl before her. She gasped for air when she had done, leaned back against the wall. It was filthy and she knew it, but the cold tile felt so good against her forehead. If only the lights in here weren't so bright and the bass didn't pound so much.

Shepard clutched a hand to her forehead, pressing at her temples with her thumb and forefinger. Her other hand pressed against her still-roiling stomach. Biotics trembled down her arms and she fought to bring them under control. It took her several deep breaths to manage it.

The door opened then, bringing with it a louder thumping of bass before it slammed shut. Shepard stiffened. This was the men's restroom, wasn't it? She couldn't remember which door the corporal had dragged her through. That part was still hazy, as was the reason that he'd run from her. Biotics had played a part, she was sure. She just couldn't remember how far they'd gotten before things had gone to hell.

Shepard winced. If she was able to remember anything at all, then that must mean she was sobering up. That was unfortuate. This was a hell of a place to be sober in.

"Where'd Ecker go?" one male voice asked another. Shepard cringed. She must be in the men's restroom after all. Damn.

"Left," another male voice replied. "He looked like he'd burned his lips. Must have tried that krogan import."

"No." It was a female voice that spoke now. There was a clicking sound before she went on. "It was that biotic. He went off with her."

"Shit man," one of the other male voices spoke again, underscored by more clicking. "I warned him about her."

Shepard swallowed, unable to speak. They were talking about her, weren't they? She couldn't decide if she wanted to sink into the floor in embarrassment or burst out of the stall and throw them all into the urinals. Before she could make up her mind, she felt her stomach pitch. She swallowed back bile, managing not to vomit or make a sound.

Yet another click sounded through the room. "So what's so wrong with her?" the second male voice asked. "I thought she was kind of hot."

"She'll do anyone," the female voice said, her voice snide. "But she tears them up with biotics as soon as she's done with them. She's like a fucking witch."

Shepard nearly choked at that. She would not do _anyone_, she thought, frowning. She turned down a sergeant just last week, much to his annoyance. She'd gone off with the corporal because he'd been nice - well, sort of. He'd shown his true colors in here just a few minutes ago. Like most guys she'd met recently, he turned out to be more interested in taking than giving and his nice-guy demeanor was just an act.

"Well, his own damn fault then," the first male voice said.

The room filled with a smell that Shepard recognized at once. Every kid who'd gone to a public high school must know that smell, she thought. Funny how that particular earth plant grew so well on so many worlds.

"I kind of feel sorry for her, actually," the second male voice said. "She always looks so sad."

"I'd be sad too if I was a biotic," the first male voice said.

"Pfft," the female voice snorted, the exhaled heavily. "She's a snob, always sticking her nose up at everyone, brown-nosing the officers. But the minute she hits the clubs, she'll do the first guy who asks. She's a total slut."

The last word shook the remaining haze out of Shepard's brain.

_What the hell are you doing in here, Shepard? _a voice went through her mind. It sounded suspiciously like her own voice – the voice she'd used whenever her younger siblings did something stupid. With a lurch, she pushed herself off of the toilet and to a standing position. She wavered for one moment, then stuck her chin in the air and slammed the stall door open.

"Shit!"

The trio she'd been listening to jumped back, nearly dropping their joint to the floor. Shepard suddenly found herself thinking of them as Fates, passing around a single eye between them. The thought made her smile, her lips quirking to the side. Shepard fixed them all with a thoughtful expression. They just stared at her, wide eyed, wondering what she was going to do.

"Thanks," she said after a moment.

"You're welcome?" one of the guys said, his expression sarcastic. The other two sputtered with laughter.

"Damn," the girl said, looking Shepard over. Shepard glanced at the mirror, catching sight of her own reflection. Her hair was matted, dark circles hung under her eyes, and her shirt was half-unbuttoned, her bra unclasped in the back. With as much dignity as she could muster, she adjusted her clothes and smoothed her hair, deliberately ignoring the snort and laugh that the girl directed at her. The two guys were a little more quiet, and Shepard got the distinct impression they were wondering if they might risk what Ecker had.

"Freak," the girl said, holding the joint back up to her lips. Shepard looked up, then snapped her fingers. The joint went sailing out of the girl's fingers and landed in the sink.

"Hey!" the girl cried, taking a step forward, then she stopped short, as if she'd slammed into something solid. Shepard just raised an eyebrow, her arm outstretched.

"You don't know me," Shepard told her. She stopped at that, realizing the truth of her own words. "And you never will." She let her hand drop.

"God!" the girl cried, stumbling back as Shepard released her from stasis. "What the hell is wrong with you?"

Shepard thought a dozen things she could say to respond to that. But what was the point? she thought. These people would never understand. She was just a biotic freak to them, and damn it if she hadn't completely earned herself that reputation. Shepard suddenly felt as if the world had frozen, and though it, she saw her own future, like a long road outside of a glass door. She had vomit on her shirt and was living up to every rumor that had been spread about her. It would take a hell of a long time to live all this down.

_I'd better get started,_ she thought.

With her chin held high, Shepard turned on her heel and marched out of the smoke-filled bathroom, ignoring the whispers that echoed behind her all the way through the club.

* * *

_(more recent flashback: Normandy SR1, Armistice Day, one day prior to arrival on Virmire)_

"Last beer, commander?"

Shepard paused in her walk across the crew deck towards her cabin, and turned to find Ashley holding a bottle out for her.

"Saved it just for you," Ashley said, waving it by the neck.

Shepard considered saying no. She'd already had one drink and that was her limit nowadays. But she couldn't very well say no, so she nodded, taking the offered drink and twisting off the cap.

"Cheers," she said, holding up the bottle. Ashley tapped hers against the commander's then took a swig. Ashley nodded at the small knot of people at the other end of the table then turned back to Shepard.

"Have to admit I was kind of pissed when you turned our little private party into a 'make nice with the aliens time'," Ashley said. "But," she added when Shepard's eyebrows raised, "you were right. Vakarian isn't as much of an ass and I thought he was. Wrex, however, I still don't trust."

"That's because he beat you at arm wrestling," Shepard told her.

"That's part of it," Ashley shrugged. "Dunno. He could turn on us some day, you know."

"I don't think so," Shepard said. She looked up and nodded as several crew members waved their goodbyes to the commander and the chief. The party was dispersing now, leaving just her and Ashley at the table.

"So commander," Ashley said, looking thoughtful. "I've been meaning to tell you something."

Shepard nodded for her to go on.

"You know, I heard a lot of rumors about you before I got assigned to the Normandy."

Shepard frowned. "I can imagine," she said. She wondered which ones the gunnery chief was referring to.

"I don't believe most rumors," Ashley said quickly. "Hell, there are enough rumors out there about my family. I know most gossip is crap. I just wanted to say that I've just been impressed. I thought you were just a pretty poster-girl. Or, wait. That didn't sound right."

"You thought I was a PR stunt," Shepard said without rancor. "I am. It's true. Even the Spectre thing is a PR stunt."

"But you're not," Ashley said, frowning.

"I'm not because I choose not to be," Shepard replied. "I didn't feel that I deserved that Star of Terra, so I decided to earn it." She chuckled a little. "If that makes any sense."

"Yeah," Ashley nodded. "I can understand working hard to earn respect. 'Williams, Quisling, and Arnold.' Or, hell, try, 'Women aren't that strong.' 'Women don't do well under fire.' God, sometimes you'd think it was still the twenty-first century the way some jackasses talk. I'm glad there are people like you showing them different."

"I'm trying," Shepard said, taking a swig of her beer. "I don't know how good a role-model I am, but I'm trying." She thought back to her early days in Basic and shook her head. "I understand you though, Williams. You work twice as hard because you don't deserve your bad reputation. I work twice as hard because I don't feel like I deserve my good one." She smiled a little and fingered the neck of her beer bottle. "Truly, Williams, I don't think anyone should be made into a role-model. No one is good enough to be an ideal for other people. It just means that people end up getting angry when the warts get shown."

"You're talking about the Elysium rumors?" Ashley said, then suddenly she shut her mouth.

"Sure," Shepard said, smiling a little. "Yeah. Elysium."

"You know," Ashley said, "I don't think the problem is having heroes. I mean, hell, it was heroes like my dad who inspired me to join the service. It's the problem that people want everything to be black and white – you know, all one way or the other. When you get to know someone well enough, you realize they make mistakes, but you can also see why they made the mistakes." She shrugged. "You know what I'm saying?"

Shepard looked at her gunnery chief and smiled. "You're alright, Williams."

"You too, commander," Ashley said, raising her beer. "So here's to lady marines kicking ass."

"Here's to earning respect," Shepard said, holding up her beer. "And keeping it."

"Cheers, commander."

* * *

_(present day: day after Armistice Day)_

"Reactions to Shepard's reported return are mixed. While, some are pleased to have her return; other see her false death as a betrayal."

Shepard frowned at the ceiling, momentarily considering blowing out the speaker with a well-placed biotic warp. She'd heard that report about five times now in her short time on the Citadel. You'd think there would be something else to talk about over Armistice day weekend. It put her in a bad mood every time she heard the report. After all, she could think of any number of people who saw her death as a betrayal – and one in particular was on her mind all the time these days. Yet, in spite of asking Captain Bailey about him, no one seemed to have access to any information about Kaidan's whereabouts. He could be around the corner - he could be on the other side of the galaxy. Shepard sighed and pursed her lips. This not knowing was driving her crazy.

"You don't like hearing about yourself on the news, do you?" Kasumi asked, looking up from her datapad magazine.

"I never liked the press," Shepard replied automatically.

"Neither do I," Kasumi said. "It's why I avoid the limelight."

"Yeah," Shepard said, frowning. "Lucky you." She tapped idly at the datapad in her lap. "God, don't they have anything other than news to read?"

"I could get you a copy of Fornax," Kasumi grinned. "Of course, it is the elcor issue this month."

"Ugh," Shepard frowned. "No thanks. Even if it was all human men, I'd..." She trailed off for a moment, thinking of Kaidan and what he might look like in such poses. "Pass," she said, absently.

"You had to think about that, didn't you?" Kasumi smiled.

"I did," Shepard said, smiling a little. She looked up at the thief, then nodded at her head. "You look good with the hood off. You should go without it."

"Nah," Kasumi said with a shrug. "I just take it off for these little treats, then hide under it again."

When Kasumi had taken off her hood, Shepard had been shocked to find the woman's hair was as eccentric as her personality. Naturally black, it had been cut into the most exotic short style Shepard had ever seen, with long pieces here and there dyed blue and green. It would have looked a mess, except that somehow Kasumi pulled it off with a kind of funky grace. She looked like a DJ in a Wards club, and her unique application of make-up only added to the effect. Kasumi now sat opposite Shepard, a holographic drying cap over her newly dyed head. This time, she'd gone for hot pink, bright purple, and a shot or two of orange to liven up the raven black.

"But if you go to all this trouble," Shepard said, "Why not let your hair...uh...down?"

"It's for me," Kasumi said. "Only Keiji ever got to see this – and then only after much persuasion. I like to keep part of me...to me."

"Hmm..." Shepard nodded. "I can see that. Well, I'm honored I got admitted to this circle, but is it really necessary to make me join in?"

"You needed a cut," Kasumi said. "Your hair is growing out so quickly, I would have thought you were using a treatment."

"I'm a biotic," Shepard shrugged. "My hair grows faster than normal – twice as fast, to be exact. High metabolism, you know. It's one of those weird side-effects."

It was also, Shepard thought, the reason that Kaidan had always had that wonderful five o'clock shadow and kept his hair a little longer than most other military men. She had thought his hair a little weird at first, but then she'd grown to like it. She smiled a sadly at that memory.

"Anyway," Shepard said, changing the subject, "You said you had a wig for me to wear to the party."

"Yeah," Kasumi said. "You're a blond. That attracts notice. We need you to look beautiful, make men stammer, and then have everyone completely forget what your face looked like when you walk away. A blond would stand out too much, so we need a new look for you. I would have dyed it," she added, "Only I knew you wouldn't want that..."

"I wouldn't," Shepard told her, thinking that she already felt too changed as it was.

"Right," Kasumi nodded. "So we'll use a wig. Plus, that way, it will be obvious that you're trying not to attract notice. Hock will be too distracted by wondering who you really are and what you really look like to pay any attention to your actual features."

"That is the most bizarre bit of logic I've ever heard," Shepard told her.

Kasumi shrugged. "Don't worry about it. It will work out fine. Anyway, you should relax. This is a fun girl's afternoon out. Besides, you want to look good for when you meet with the Councilor again."

"Like Anderson would care," Shepard said. "The first time he met me, I was covered in Batarian blood from head to foot."

"Ooh. I do like your sense of style, Shepard," Kasumi said with a wink.

Shepard chuckled as Kasumi returned to her magazine. The woman wasn't so bad, Shepard thought, except for the fact that she was here because she was on Cerberus's payroll. The thought made Shepard feel extremely lonely all of a sudden.

"I wonder if Ashley would have been as angry with me as Kaidan was," Shepard murmured to herself.

"Huh?" Kasumi looked up.

"Nothing," Shepard said, turning back to her datapad. "Just talking to myself."

* * *

From her position by the column, Kalishah Al Jilani fluffed her hair and checked her video drone for the fifth time in as many minutes. It galled her that she hadn't managed to stop Shepard before the woman had disappeared into the super-exclusive salon. At the time, her hair had been so delightfully messy and she would have sworn that there had been dried blood on the knuckles of her gloves. Shepard had looked like the mad-woman that Al-Jilani had always suspected her of being.

Unfortunately, Shepard would probably come back out of that salon looking cleaned up. Still, the reprieve had allowed the reporter time to hone her questions. She'd gotten the tip from C-Sec an came running as fast as she could. This time, she was determined to beat any other reporter to the scoop. That prissy Ms. Wong would only hero-worship Shepard and any other station would also refuse to press the war hero for the real story. But Al-Jilani had verbally sparred with Shepard before.

And this time, she planned to show Shepard's true colors to everyone, once and for all.


	60. Lone Leader

_Chapter 60_

_Lone Leader_

_Author's Note: has been goofy, so you may have missed my last update. Still working on my personal project - will post details on that fiction soon._

* * *

"So that's it then?" Shepard said, fighting to keep her fury out of her voice. "You'll acknowledge that you send Alenko out to Horizon to investigate me and Cerberus, but you won't tell me anything more about what he's up to now?"

She caught herself before she said anything more. Kaidan didn't want her anymore anyhow, she thought, bitterly.

Councilor Anderson just frowned at her. "You know I can't compromise his assignment," he said.

"So you've spoken to him?" Shepard asked. Anderson did not answer. She scowled. "Was the report in my favor? Have you finally realized that I want to be rid of Cerberus and re-join the Alliance?"

Anderson just pursed his lips and folded his hands.

"Nothing, huh?" Shepard sighed. "Fine then. I don't know why I bothered to have Bailey help me track you down if you're just going to..." She broke off as she noticed something at the councilor's elbow, something she had not seen the last time she visited here.

"Why do you have a picture of Kaidan on your desk?" she asked, too startled to ask about the commander by his proper title.

"It's not just him," Councilor Anderson said. "It's all of you. Only the damn thing gets stuck sometimes." He pounded the edge of the frame with his fist, then looked on as the picture cycled to a shot of Ashley Williams. Shepard's breath seemed to catch in her throat.

"Ash," she murmured. Then the picture changed again to show a shot of Shepard herself, her eyes slightly crossed and her face caught in a strange half-grin. "That's a bad one," she muttered.

"Doctor Chakwas gave that to me as a congratulations gift for getting this position," Anderson explained. "She didn't have much to go on with you, I'm afraid. You're not exactly photogenic, you know."

"I know," Shepard said, chuckling and rubbing the back of her neck.

"It's a little sentimental," Anderson admitted, "but I've kept it. It reminds me of you – all of you. Of the people who put me here – of the people I'm fighting for." He paused, then stood and started pacing across the room.

"Shepard, I know you're upset. I know you don't think I'm doing much up here, but there are many ways to fight. I had hoped my way might be your way – the Spectre's way. But it seems it's not. Not anymore. My way of fighting is with diplomacy, now. And sometimes with...compromises." He said the last word softly, as if it was something thorny he didn't want to touch, and his eyes grew troubled.

"That's a lonely fight," Shepard replied.

"So is yours," Anderson replied. "You were always in a strange place, Shepard. I saw that from the moment I met you. You came from this big family, but they were all gone. You had rallied a whole colony during the Blitz, but took on the worst of that fight alone. You command teams all the time, but just as often, you work solo." He turned to look at her. "Like me, you were always caught between being a commander and a Spectre – a lone operative and a leader. That's a difficult place to be."

Shepard snorted. "Yeah," she said. "Yeah, it is." She let her eyes drift back to Anderson's holo – now showing a picture of Joker – and she shook her head. "I guess I never really thought of it like that."

"I knew you could work alone," Anderson told her firmly. "And I know you can lead. And even though I can't help you – I know you can get this mission done. And when you do..."

"Then I can come back to the Alliance?" Shepard asked, raising an eyebrow. "After everything they've said about me? After all the help they didn't give?"

"I didn't say they'd necessarily take you back," Anderson replied.

"Right," she said. "Well, no surprise there."

"They're pulling for you Shepard," Anderson told her. "Some of them. Perhaps more than you know."

"And others are gunning for me," she said.

Anderson inclined his head in acknowledgment of the fact and Shepard just sighed. She stood, gazing out at the Presidium, down at the lake below, out at the people going about their daily lives, all thinking that the next meeting they had was important – that the lunch dates they had were important. And in a way, she supposed that such things were important. But as for what was really important...

After a moment's consideration, Shepard reached for her neck. She pulled her dogtags over her head and held them out to Anderson.

"Here," she told him solemnly. "Give them to..." Then she remembered once again that Kaidan had moved on, and her stomach roiled. "Nevermind," she said, tucking them back into her armor. "They'll go through the relay with me."

She took and breath and gave Anderson as respectful a salute as she could muster.

"It was an honor serving with you, sir," she told him. "I never had the chance to tell you that." She swallowed, and then, after a moment's consideration added:

"And Kaidan – Alenko – is the only member of my former team who's still with the Alliance. Tell him goodbye for me, please."

Anderson opened his mouth as if to say something, then shut it. He simply nodded.

"Good-bye, Anderson," Shepard said. With a sad smile, she left the room.

* * *

Anderson sat back down, frowning as the picture on his desk cycled through all the familiar faces once again:

Presley. Chawkas. Alenko. Shepard.

Anderson sighed.

He'd meant what he'd said, he thought, feeling suddenly very old. He knew Shepard could do this. And in his heart of hearts, he knew that what Cerberus had done with her was the answer to his problems. She was his best operative and she had died shortly after her greatest victory. Cerberus had brought her back. Colonies had been disappearing and the Council did nothing. Cerberus took her to stop them. She had even managed to save the life of Alenko, his other best operative. And now she was on her way to stop the Collectors once and for all and then go after the Reapers. What the Council and the Alliance should have been doing together, _she _was taking on alone.

No, he reminded himself, not alone. She was doing this with Cerberus. What Cerberus had done here had truly been best for everyone.

_But is it best for her?_ His conscience nagged him.

His frown deepened. He didn't know. He'd heard rumors about Shepard before she'd even come to see him those long months ago. He'd suspected where the rumors had come from, and from the intermittent reports he'd gotten about Shepard's activity, it seemed clear to him that Cerberus was directing her every step. It had been hard to say what she thought of all this, however. When she'd been here, she was as hard to read as ever.

Even on the ship, she'd kept silent. The one mole that Anderson had managed to sneak onto the SR2 had given him little to go on. Shepard was well-respected, even feared, the man had said. She had done much for her crew and had built an impressive team. Rumors abounded about her squad – their history, their concerns, their affairs and their comings and goings. But the mole had little to say about what Shepard herself was thinking or feeling. She ran a tight ship and stayed on an unrelenting schedule. Some of the crew joked that Cerberus had brought her back as a robot – no heart and no sense of pain. Of course, no one dared to do that within her hearing. But the result was that she confided in no one - or at least the people she confided in did not speak of what she'd said. So Shepard's thoughts on her situation remained a mystery.

And as for Anderson, he felt that he knew less about Shepard now than ever. As before, Shepard was marching out into danger and he could do nothing but keep people out of her path and hope she came back. Maybe then, he thought, he could finally help more than simply watch from the sidelines.

Anderson stared into empty space for a moment longer, then hit the comm link on his desk.

"C-Sec customs, Zakera Ward," a voice answered on the other end.

"This is Councilor Anderson. I need to speak with your supervisor," Anderson said. There was a long pause, then:

"Bailey here."

"Officer Bailey," Anderson said. "Has Commander Shepard left the Citadel?"

"Captain," the man corrected. "Yeah, her ship just left range of our sensors. Why, you want me to hail her?"

"No," Anderson replied. "Just notify me if she should return."

Anderson felt a strange heaviness in his chest as he spoke those words.

"Understood," Bailey replied. "She'd be hard to miss. Has a tendency to cause an incident wherever she goes."

Anderson's eyes narrowed. "Was there some problem with Shepard?"

"Not with her," Bailey replied. "Sort of more - _around _her. She had the station in a bit of an uproar, what with her stopping a murder and catching a known felon."

Anderson shook his head. That certainly sounded like Shepard. "What did she do, exactly?" he asked.

"Well," Bailey said, "It's sort of a long story..."


	61. Harkin's an Ass

_Chapter 61_

_Harkin's an Ass_

_(Author's Note: Because the idea came to me and I just had to...)_

* * *

"Come on in, Alenko," Anderson motioned for Kaidan to enter the room. "I think you'll want to hear this."

Kaidan walked into the C-Sec office cautiously, glancing curiously to all three men in the room. Anderson stood stiffly before them, another man he did not recognize stood nearby as well. That man had fair hair and wore a C-Sec uniform. Another man sat in a chair in the center of the office. He was balding, bleeding, and looked vaguely familiar.

"Hey, I know you," the balding, bleeding man said, looking Kaidan up and down. "You were with Shepard all those years ago."

Kaidan's jaw clenched, just as it always did when he heard her name mentioned. But to hear it mentioned by this guy, with his smirk and his mean eyes made Kaidan feel like summoning a little biotic kick for him, just to wipe that look off his face.

"You remember Commander Alenko?" Anderson frowned.

"Sure," the guy nodded. "Came into Chora's Den with Shepard. They were both after Saren at the time. There was a brunette with them, too. She was hot, but not as hot as Shepard."

Kaidan felt a flare shiver over his fingers. He got it under control a moment later, but the guy in the chair didn't miss it.

"Yeah, you were as defensive of Shepard then as you are now," the guy sneered. "But it looks like she doesn't need you as her bodyguard any more."

Kaidan froze, torn between a flash of anger and complete and utter confusion.

"What the hell are you talking about?" he snapped. "Who are you, anyway?"

"This is former C-Sec officer Harkin," the C-Sec officer said. "Emphasis on the former." The man's Earth-Canadian accent was relaxed, but could not hide the fact that he was seriously disgusted with the situation. "He recently had a little run-in with a friend of yours."

"Two friends, actually," Harkin said, raising an eyebrow.

"Harkin?" Kaidan repeated. The name finally rang a bell. "You're that dirty cop that told us..." Kaidan broke off and glanced up at Captain Anderson. Harkin had told Kaidan and Shepard some of Anderson's secrets the last time they had met. "You told us where to find Garrus," Kaidan finished quickly.

"And about how Anderson here screwed up his admission into the Spectres," Harkin laughed. "Don't forget that part."

Kaidan frowned. The guy was a jerk, but he didn't miss a trick. Kaidan would have to watch his step.

"My history is not the point of this meeting," Captain Anderson said, sharply. "Tell us about when you saw Shepard the other day."

"You saw Shepard?" Kaidan suddenly felt a little sick to his stomach. "Recently?"

Kaidan couldn't believe it. Shepard had come here, to the Citadel. And she still hadn't written back to him. Though Kaidan knew that she hadn't dropped off the face of the galaxy when he'd left her on Horizon, it was bizarre to think that she had been out seeing people without...seeing him.

Well, of course she would. She hadn't sought him out before Horizon, after all. And after they way they'd parted... Kaidan frowned at that thought.

"Sure, I saw her," Harkin said, grinning a little. "I never forget a face. Hell, I don't forget much of anything."

"That was the one thing you had going for you as an officer," the other C-Sec officer said. "Now shut the hell up about yourself and start talking about Shepard."

"Relax, Bailey," Harkin scoffed. "I'll tell you. Yeah," he added, looking Kaidan up and down, "I'll tell you just to see what the boy scout here thinks of his former commander after all this."

"You have something to say, then say it," Kaidan said, as cool as he could manage. He had to congratulate himself that his voice stayed steady. In fact, he sounded so indifferent that Harkin frowned a little.

"Well, it was a few days back, see?" Harkin began. "I was just minding my own business when the Spectre and the turian came out of nowhere."

"Turian?" Kaidan blinked. "You don't mean Garrus, do you?"

"One and the same," Harkin nodded.

"What was he doing here?" Kaidan asked.

"Attacking me, that's what!" Harkin cried. "The bastard kneed me in the balls, then tried to shoot me."

"Garrus tried to shoot you?"

"Pity he wasn't a better shot," Bailey said wryly.

"Hmpf," Harkin snorted.

Kaidan's eyes narrowed. "Wait," he said, "Garrus _tried_ to shoot you? If Garrus meant to shoot you, he'd have done it."

"Shepard stopped him," Harking shrugged. "He broke my nose instead."

That gave Kaidan pause. It sounded like them – like both of them. He could imagine Garrus getting angry enough to shoot this loser, just as he could see Shepard stepping in to stop him.

"Why were they after you in the first place?" Kaidan asked.

"'Cause they're crazy, that's why," Harkin said.

"That's not the whole of it," Bailey told Kaidan. "Harkin here has been helping criminals 'disappear.' Apparently one of his clients had wronged Garrus somehow. And Garrus wanted to find the guy."

"The guy had helped wipe out Garrus' friends or somethin'," Harkin shrugged. "For me, it was a way to mess with Garrus as much as to make a little cash. Too bad Garrus showed up like he did."

"So you sold your client out?" Kaidan raised an eyebrow.

"He and Shepard were...persuasive," Harkin said, not meeting their eyes.

"They did that to you?" Kaidan asked, pointing at the man's wounds. The thought of Shepard and Garrus beating this man made him uneasy. As much as the guy probably deserved it, Kaidan had thought better of his former teammates.

"Garrus did," Harkin frowned.

"Then Garrus went and killed this client of yours?" Kaidan asked. Just saying the words made him go from uneasy to disgusted. It was bad enough that Garrus and Shepard were working with Cerberus and beating up dirty cops. But if Garrus had become a murderer, and Shepard an accessory to a murder...

"Apparently not," Bailey said. "I sent out feelers as soon as I got the guy's name. Some turian named Sidonis. We brought him in for a little talk. He was shaken up pretty bad, but he was alive. Apparently, Garrus took aim at him but Shepard stopped Garrus from taking the shot. It seems neither of them wanted blood on their hands."

"They didn't kill him?" Kaidan asked, feeling a sudden sense of relief.

"Scared the hell out of him, but no killing," Bailey said. "Frankly, since I have no proof of the incident except for one shaken eyewitness, I'm not going to pursue the matter. It'd be a waste of time to try and bring them in."

"They beat me up," Harkin grumbled. "Ain't you gonna bring 'em in for that?"

"I think we ought to thank them for that," Bailey said wryly.

Kaidan shook his head. "So, let me get this straight," he said. "Garrus and Shepard showed up here because Garrus wanted to take out someone who betrayed him, and then Shepard persuaded him not to?"

"Pretty much," Harkin shrugged. "Though I've never known Garrus to take orders from anyone before. Not even his boss at C-Sec."

"Garrus isn't a murderer," Kaidan said with conviction. "He must have been angry, but clearly he saw that what he was doing was wrong in the end."

"Yeah," Harkin snorted. "I think it was more that he's too wrapped around Shepard's finger to say no to her."

Anderson frowned, as did Kaidan. "Come again?" Kaidan said.

"Look, I saw how Garrus looked at Shepard," Harkin said. "Like he worships the ground she walks on."

Kaidan's frown deepened and he began to feel uneasy again. This time, however, his unease was less like disgust and more like...jealousy.

"I remember how he was," Harkin went on, "Garrus used to sniff around Doctor Michel's clinic on the wards all the time, protecting her from thugs and such. Now he's following after Shepard like a lapdog. Alien's got a thing for human women, if you ask me."

Kaidan had to squeeze his eyes shut. He was getting a headache all of a sudden. It was the lights; it had to be, and not the thought that...

"Wait," he said, pinching his nose, "You think that Garrus..."

"Wants Shepard? Yeah, seems he does," Harkin grinned.

It was only by two years of practice that Kaidan shut off his reaction, the immediate churning in his gut. It was only by practice that he looked steadily at Anderson and said, "Is there anything else this guy can tell us about the commander?"

"Yeah," Harkin said, his eyes narrowing on Kaidan, "Your Shepard seemed to be really concerned about Garrus, too. The woman just couldn't seem to keep her eyes off of him."

Kaidan bit his tongue so hard he actually tasted blood in his mouth. He saw red, and yet somehow, miraculously, he kept his hands behind his back and his expression blank.

"That's enough, Harkin," Bailey said. "We don't know her motives. She was probably just trying to keep him from shooting your sorry ass."

"Either way, Shepard's personal relationships are not our concern here," Anderson said coldly. "Did she say anything about who she was working for?"

Kaidan had never been so grateful to Anderson in his life for the way the captain brought Harkin back around just then. If the man had kept looking at Kaidan with that smug expression, Kaidan would have flattened him.

"No," Harkin said, looking suspicious now. "I thought she was still a Spectre, working for the council. Just figured she was helping out Garrus, you know."

"I see," Anderson said. "Thank you for arranging this meeting, Bailey."

"Hey, so am I going to get some time off for helping out here?" Harkin asked.

"Not a chance," Bailey replied. "Your sentence will be as long as the Citadel prosecutor can convince the judge it ought to be. Men, get him out of here." He called into a comm link and a few C-Sec officers came into the room. They collected the protesting Harkin and dragged him off.

"Bastard," Bailey said after Harkin had gone. He shook his head, then turned to the two Alliance officers. "Feel free to use the office as long as you like. Me, I need to get some paperwork filed on that idiot." He wandered out of the office and shut the door behind him. Anderson paced to the other end of the room, and Kaidan just stood there, reeling.

_The woman just couldn't seem to keep her eyes off of him._

There's a logical explanation to this, the rational part of Kaidan's mind told him. Shepard was trying to keep Garrus in line.

Kaidan frowned. Then why would Harkin say otherwise?

_Harkin's an ass. I bet he was just messing with us._

Kaidan had said that years ago about Harkin's revelation that Anderson had been a Spectre and failed at the job. Kaidan remembered his flippant statement with a growing sense of frustration. He wanted to say it again and have it be true of this news about Shepard. But Harkin had been right about Anderson in the end.

What if Harkin was right about Shepard and Garrus?

Kaidan couldn't think. His head was pounding and he just couldn't think.

If Shepard had left him...for _Garrus_...

"Alenko?" Anderson's voice cut into his thoughts. Kaidan jumped.

"Yes, sir?"

"I asked what do you make of it all?"

"I hardly know," Kaidan murmured.

"I know," Anderson said. "Me either. It's a bizarre story, and I can't see how it fits in with Cerberus's goals."

"It doesn't," Kaidan said. He tried to force his mind back to the present, to the facts – and to any theories that fit the facts – not to dwell on Harkin's...speculations. "It must be that Shep – It must be that she's helping Garrus, because..." Kaidan broke off. He remembered Harkin's insinuations and could not think any further.

"Because she's sleeping with him?" Anderson made a disgusted sound. "I doubt that. The woman is far too professional to get involved with her own crew."

Kaidan nearly choked at the captain's words. He only barely collected himself. If Anderson only knew about Shepard's involvement with Kaidan, he thought. Then again, Kaidan was glad that the man did not.

"Maybe," Kaidan said, grasping to find a reason that sounded sane and did not involve Shepard and Garrus being together in a more intimate way, "Maybe she's helping him so that he isn't distracted from the mission. I remember when we were chasing Saren, Garrus had some unfinished business with a salarian doctor. Shepard took the time to see it done so that Garrus was able to focus on Saren." Even as Kaidan said it, it made sense. Still, Harkin's words had left a nagging doubt in his mind that simply would not go away.

"That would explain things," Anderson nodded. "My intel says that she's been recruiting all sorts of unsavory types. If Garrus is the only member of her old squad that she has left, it would make sense that she'd want him focused on the mission. She'd want to be sure she could trust him completely."

_Trust him completely._

Shepard had once trusted Kaidan completely. The thought made his heart sink. For a moment, he felt a strange pang of guilt that Shepard should be forced to recruit anyone at all, that she would be forced to surround herself with people she couldn't trust. But then he told himself that it was her own fault. When she signed up with Cerberus, she got what was coming to her. After all, he had trusted her once, and look where that had gotten him.

The words didn't have the conviction they used to.

"Alenko?"

"Sir?" Kaidan snapped to attention. That was the second time now his mind had wandered.

"I asked if you had anything else to add."

_Other than the fact that I can't believe she didn't stop by to see me? _

_Other than the fact that I can't believe she still hasn't written me back? _

_Other than the fact that I'm sick thinking that she might be with Garrus?"_

"No sir," Kaidan replied, forcing his face to remain impassive.

Anderson watched Kaidan closely for a moment, then nodded. "Well, that answers that," he said, seemingly satisfied. "Good."

"Sir?"

"I need to go," Anderson said. "Keep me informed of any other information you hear about Shepard."

"Aye, aye, sir."

Kaidan saluted and Anderson left the room.

* * *

Then Kaidan slumped against the table, his head pounding.

_Shepard and Garrus._

_Shepard and Garrus?_

That had to be wrong. That had to be Harkin being an ass – messing with him – confused, even. There was no way that Shepard would go for...

Garrus wasn't even human.

Kaidan had never thought of himself as racist against aliens, but then again, he had never thought of one as a potential rival before. He supposed that was arrogant of him, but the thought had honestly never crossed his mind. He certainly hoped it had not crossed Shepard's.

Then again, he thought with a sudden feeling of nausea, it wasn't like that kind of thing hadn't happened between before. Hell, the extranet was filled with all manner of interspecies porn. Not that he'd seen it. Well, not much anyways.

The thought made Kaidan's blood boil, but it also worried him. Shepard could get hurt, here. She wasn't delicate, exactly: she was a soldier and a biotic for a start. In a straight-up fight, she could probably mop the floor with any of the crew – even Kaidan, and he knew he was no slouch. But turians were huge – like seven-foot dinosaurs. They had armored skin and fangs for God's sake. If a human and a turian tried to have sex... Kaidan squeezed his eyes shut.

He could feel his biotics flaring, feel his emotions roiling. He'd managed for so long to keep himself together, and now he was loosing it. It months now since Horizon and he still felt as raw as he had back then. One glance at Shepard, and she'd opened a wound in him that he couldn't seem to close.

Garrus had been there, Kaidan remembered, his head snapping up. The turian had been at her back. He had defended Shepard when Kaidan had yelled at them both. The turian had placed a hand on Shepard's arm as Kaidan had turned to go.

Had Garrus taken his place?

The thought made Kaidan's biotics flare once more. At the same moment, a headache flared through his skull.

Damn. Kaidan pinched his nose. How the hell was a guy supposed to process something like this? He'd always regarded Garrus as a friend, as a teammate. He liked the guy. But now that he looked back, he saw that there had been plenty of times when Garrus had seemed...enamored of Shepard. Kaidan had thought of it as hero-worship, a close, cross-species friendship at most. He knew that Garrus was protective of Shepard, but so was Kaidan. Hell, so was everyone in their own way. Kaidan had never thought that the turian would actually...

Kaidan placed his hands on the table and tried to calm himself down. Garrus might have a thing for Shepard. Kaidan could admit that. It worried him, weirded him out, but he could see that. The question was, did Shepard return it?

Kaidan thought back through everything he knew about Shepard. She had always been friendly to Garrus, friendly to everyone, really. Her care for her crew was evident. And yet, she hadn't seemed to have feelings – not like that, anyway – for Garrus back then. If anything, the guy annoyed her with his hot-headed ways. Kaidan remembered more than one occasion overhearing her tell Garrus to back down or cool off. She'd sounded more like she was reprimanding a subordinate than talking to someone she might be interested in. Kaidan' had always thought that Shepard regarded Garrus as something of a kid brother – in spite of the fact that the turian towered over her by a good foot.

Whereas, when she was around Kaidan, Shepard had been... His face softened as he thought of that. She had always spoken to him in a way that was different from everyone else. He saw that now. She had treated him like an equal, welcomed his comments and listened to his criticisms. She'd never done that with the rest of the crew. They had something together, something that set them apart, even in the middle of a crowd. And as for what happened between him and Shepard when no one was around...

Kaidan closed his eyes. He could still remember the feel of her, the taste of her, even after all this time apart. That one kiss on Horizon had brought it all back. They'd been lovers for less than three months, and most of that time, they'd been under regulations that kept them from acting on their feelings. Yet, he could remember each time they'd been together with heartbreaking clarity. He'd been her first – technically. She had told him that their first night together. At the time he could scarcely believe that someone so passionate could have gone without sex for so long.

Now he realized that he assumed that she had been as celibate as he had been these last two years. Surely she wouldn't have turned her back the fact that they had taught each other nearly everything they knew about intimacy. But then, he thought, people changed. _He_ had changed. And it had been two years – two and a half years now. So maybe Shepard had moved on long before Horizon.

Kaiden scowled. This was going to make him crazy. He tried to clear his mind and think rationally about what Harkin had said. After all, he thought, Harkin had only been partially right about Anderson all those years ago. Harkin had thought that Anderson was kicked out of the Spectres. The truth turned out to be that Anderson had never made the cut, thanks to Saren sabotaging his first mission. Kaidan straightened a little. Harkin had his intel wrong then. He had his finger on the pulse of what was going on, but got the details confused. Maybe the same thing was true now. Maybe he had only some of his information right, but was making the wrong assumptions about it.

Kaidan tried to lay the facts down in a neat row. Shepard and Garrus had come here. They had tried to find some guy who had betrayed Garrus; Garrus had gone to kill the man, and Shepard had talked him out of it. Those were the facts.

Now for Harkins's assumptions. Kaidan would like to dismiss them all, but he suspected that some of them might be correct. The man was a prick, but he was uncanny in his ability to read people. He was probably right that Garrus had been held in check by Shepard's persuasion.

But Kaidan knew Garrus, too. As much as he hated to give Garrus any credit at the moment, Kaidan knew that the turian was decent and honorable at the core. Garrus would never become a murderer, not while there was any way out. And Shepard had clearly given him a way out.

So then, Kaidan thought, looking at the facts all lined up in his mind, it was possible Harkin had just seen Garrus' admiration of Shepard, his gratitude to Shepard, and made a mistake. Garrus and Shepard had completed a mission to help Garrus out and that was all there was to it.

And it was possible that there was more.

Kaidan felt ill.

There was no way to know, no way at all – not unless he saw her again. A second meeting was doubtful, given this new assignment of his. It would be taking him away for a while. He could email her again, but he just couldn't bring himself to send another message, not when his current one was still unanswered.

Kaidan's stomach seemed to plummet, and his heart – the heart he'd thought was dead – felt like it was breaking.

She still hadn't written him back.

Perhaps that was his answer right there.


	62. A Shower and Some Sleep

_Author's Note: Hi all! I'm still alive and I'm still writing._

_This site hasn't sent out notifications for a while now. I hope all you readers are still getting updates. Yes, I've been seriously remiss in updating, because I'm all caught up in starting my original fiction and getting the website up and watching the hubby draw original art for it. That new stuff should be up seriously any day now. You will be able to read it via the web OR a kindle. (I bought a kindle and I LOVE it, btw. they are awesome!) I'm waiting on my final beta reader before I get the first chapter up. (And yes! For the original fic, I have beta readers – and they the bestest. I love them.) _

_Anyhow, some more Kyrie and Kaidan love for you all._

_Oh, and funny story: well, not so funny. I did a horrible thing: I deleted Kyrie's entire ME1 playthrough. All the saves - gone! However, compulsive gamer that I am, I did another run and made the most beautiful version of Kyrie yet in the character creator. Omg, she looks so awesome. I actually ended up basing her appearance on this fiction, so she ended up more like Kyrie than the character I started writing the fiction about. (If that makes any sense). Check out my blog (the website link is on my profile) for screenshots of her. _

_That playthrough also gave me some inspiration for flashback moments, which follow in this chapter. Oh, and you might ask, "Wait, did the chapters get moved around a little?" Yes, yes they did, because some of the pure fluff chapters got pulled to go into their own little story all by themselves._

_Oh, and I made a ME fanvid with ALL the squaddies (link is also on my blog) – because I love them all, I really do. And I've learned how to flycam and do screenshot stuff and mod the game and all sorts of fun stuff. So yeah, my fangeekness didn't go away – it just took itself over into other mediums for a while. But here's a fic update (getting SO CLOSE! to the end) and hopefully more to come and soon there will be a whole new story for you, the awesome and faithful readers of this tale. My other story WILL have much in the way of battles, weapons, snarky conversation, various romances and sexual tension. Huzzah! - sage_

* * *

_Chapter 62:_

_a shower and some sleep_

_flashback: Agebinium, following a narrow escape from a nuke-rigged mineshaft_

* * *

"I think we're good, commander."

Shepard looked up sharply, startled by the lieutenant's husky voice. She couldn't quite read his expression behind his breather mask, so she wasn't quite sure what his soft tone indicated. Maybe he was completely freaked out by her biotic display just now. That would make the most sense. But then, it almost sounded like he was trying to comfort her.

She had no idea what to think about _that_.

"One less pirate to worry about," Garrus said gamely, kicking the body of Elanos Haliat with his two-toed boot.

"Several less to worry about," Kaidan corrected, nodding to the corpses all around them.

As if suddenly seeing them for the first time, Shepard realized that blood was splattered all over the rocky landscape. She looked down at her glowing hands and found they were shaking. She hadn't even drawn her pistol.

"Come on," she said, hoping that she was the only one who heard the tremor in her voice. "Let's go."

She turned and walked briskly to the Mako, shoulders back, head high.

_Don't worry about what they think, _she told herself._ They can go ahead and be afraid of you. They don't need to like you. They don't need to know how frightened you are every time you're confronted with the past._

Shepard bit her lip behind her breather mask. She knew she should be grateful Haliat hadn't gone blabbing about her performance at Elysium to her crew. She knew she should be grateful that her anger had fueled her attack on those pirates. But right about now, she mostly just wanted to kill those slavers again and again and again. Haliat had lured her to this planet with a stupid trap involving a stolen Alliance nuke. While they had disarmed it, their success had been a close call. And though she told herself she shouldn't, a million alternative possibilities sprang to Shepard's mind. If Hackett hadn't called her in to deal with this, if she'd sent a team instead of coming personally...

Shepard squelched those thoughts as best she could. She knew such thinking could quickly drive a soldier insane. There were always what-ifs. You couldn't help that, she reminded herself. All you could do was deal with the circumstance you were handed.

Shepard hunkered down in the Mako and waited for the turian and the lieutenant to join her. She couldn't tell what bothered her more: that Haliat been the one behind the horror that was the Blitz, or that he had taken it upon himself to come after Elysium's war hero. She'd never been the target of a personal vendetta before, and she found she didn't like it one bit. Sure, she'd led teams into dangerous situations, but those situations had entirely been the result of chance. But today, an entire ground team had been put at risk because of her past.

No, she reminded herself, it was because Haliat was a pirate and scum of the worst order. Still, as much as Shepard knew her team had accepted the risks, it suddenly felt overwhelming to know that her team might get hurt because someone wanted to get to her.

_Over my dead body_, Shepard thought grimly.

As soon as the turian and the lieutenant climbed in and sealed the port hole, Shepard yanked off her helmet and shook out her hair. She shivered, not just from the sweat that was cooling on the back of her neck, but from the realization that she had almost sent Tali and Kaidan and Garrus on this mission alone. She had missed her last sleep shift and was far overdue for a rest. Presley had assured her that her three best tech experts could disarm the bomb on their own. But she'd had a gut feeling about this mission. Something about the way the nuke had gone missing just didn't add up. She'd decided to go along anyhow, no matter how tired she was.

Sleep deprivation, fury, and biotics sure made a hell of a combination in battle, she thought wryly. Shepard looked over at her companions. The turian had taken the wheel, and the lieutenant had pulled off his helmet and was sitting in the passenger seat. In the low lights of the Mako, the outline of his jaw was glowing a faint orange and the rest of his face was cast in shadow. His eyes, however, were bright and clear - and they were staring at her intently.

_God, he has beautiful eyes,_ Shepard thought.

She frowned and quickly turned her head away. That highly inappropriate thought was no doubt due to the fact that she was completely shell-shocked. She wasn't admiring his eyes, she told herself. She wasn't. She was just admiring the fact that he had remarkably calm nerves under pressure. It was impressive the way he'd helped her disarm that bomb so quickly. She was grateful to him. That was all.

"Are you okay, commander?"

Shepard looked up and met the lieutenant's eyes. Okay, she admitted to herself, he really did have beautiful eyes. However, she was admiring them completely objectively. And objectively, she searched his face, wondering what, exactly, he was thinking right now. Given how ruthlessly she'd torn those pirates into small pieces, it was a wonder he and the turian had spoken to her at all. She expected to see horror and revulsion in the lieutenant's face, but that wasn't what she saw there. He looked concerned, but not nervous – as if he was worried _for_ her rather than because of her.

She told herself that she shouldn't read anything into his concern, but his reaction warmed her all the same.

"Commander?" he repeated. "Are you okay?"

In spite of the blood all over her armor and her aching limbs, Shepard smiled.

"Not really," Shepard surprised herself by answering honestly. "But it's nothing a shower and some sleep won't fix."

* * *

_Present Day, Starboard Observation Lounge, Crew Deck, Normandy SR2_

* * *

Shepard knew she should sleep. She also knew that she needed a shower. But instead she stared at her omnitool – at the fifth message she'd tried to write since she'd started drinking:

_Dearest Kaidan -  
__Maybe there's been some misunderstanding. Or maybe you're a bastard. I'm leaning towards the bastard one. I get it. You thought I was dead. But I cannot believe you would go out with some slut after Horizon. I'd break your picture for good this time, only EDI might mention it to Miranda and I don't want the cheerleader in my room._

Shepard downed another one of the pink shots. She read the message again, then frowned. Her words were making less sense with every drink. She didn't drink much in general, but after leaving the Citadel for Kasumi's party and waltzing around a party in heels - and then getting shot at as she tried to escape said party - she felt she had earned one. And booze had seemed like a good idea when Kasumi invited Shepard into the lounge to talk, but then had fired up that horrible graybox thing and left Shepard alone with her memories of Kaidan.

Maybe she should just send the angry message after all, Shepard thought. She was just about to do so when she remembered the block on her email.

"Dammit," she slurred, saving the file and closing her omnitool. She slid off the barstool, stumbling a step.

"The women's lavatory is on the port side of the ship," EDI suggested helpfully.

"Shuddup," Shepard snapped at the ceiling.

"Beg pardon?"

Shepard nearly jumped out of her skin at the sound of Kasumi's voice. She turned to the thief, shuddering to see the glowing bar beneath the woman's hood.

"You're awake?" Shepard asked, frowning. "I thought you'd fallen asleep with that thing on."

Kasumi smiled and let the graybox holograph fade.

"Not yet," she said blithely. "Later I will though. It will be nice to fall asleep to Keji's voice again."

"He's not..." Shephard stopped herself just before she said anything more. She wasn't dealing with her own memories very well; she didn't feel she had any right to tell Kasumi how to deal with hers.

"I know he's not here," Kasumi told her. "But it's good to have a part of him with me."

"I guess I can see that," Shepard replied. "But Keji wouldn't want you to grieve forever."

Kasumi just laughed. "Always worrying about your crew," she said, lightly. "I can see why he likes you."

"Who likes me?" Shepard asked. "Keji?" Shepard's frown deepened. If Kasumi started talking to that graybox thing as if it was a real person, then Shepard was going to have to stage an intervention – one that would likely involve the graybox, the ship's trash compactor, and the garbage jettison.

"No," Kasumi chuckled. "I'm talking about the guy in the picture on your desk. I assume that's the person you're always writing to on your omnitool."

Shepard felt her mouth drop open.

"He's cute," Kasumi continued. "Or at least, his picture is nice. What's his name?"

Shepard slammed her drink down on the bar with a bang.

"Don't you ever go in my quarters again, Goto. No one goes in there except me."

"And him?" Kasumi's voice sounded amused. "Do _he_ ever get to go up to your quarters?"

"No," Shepard scowled. Then she caught Kasumi smiling and her temper flared. "Look, I don't know how you got past EDI..."

"Oh please," Kasumi laughed. "As if EDI could stop me. I know shouldn't pry, but I was curious about you."

"So you cased my room."

"I cased the whole ship," Kasumi shrugged. "It's nothing personal."

"That's the only time you go in there," Shepard told her. "Got it?"

"Yeah, okay," Kasumi nodded. "So, you gonna tell me about him?"

Shepard sighed.

"Is that a 'yes' or a 'no'?" Kasumi prodded.

"It's a 'there's nothing to tell'," Shepard replied. "He's gone."

"Gone for now or gone forever?" Kasumi wanted to know.

"The former, I hope," Shepard replied, running a hand through her hair. "Look, I really don't want to talk about him."

"Because Cerberus might be listening in?" Kasumi asked. "I'm sure they already know all about him."

Shepard squeezed her eyes shut. "That's what I'm afraid of."

"Alright," Kasumi said, not seeming offended. "Well then, _I'll_ tell you about him."

Shepard gave her a confused look, not certain she'd heard the woman right. "You? You don't even know him."

"I know he liked you because you're such a nice girl," Kasumi said.

Shepard's eyes narrowed.

"I'm not nice," she said.

"Sure you are," Kasumi smiled. "Shall I tell you why?" She went on without waiting for Shepard's reply. "Let's see – you found your way into that vault today without hurting anyone. You didn't pocket any of the pricey artwork that I saw you drooling over and then you managed to take down most of the guards without killing them." She ticked the items off on her fingers.

"That's not nice," Shepard replied. "That's efficient."

"And you've been helping everyone on this ship with their own personal problems without ever talking about your own feelings..."

"Again," Shepard said. "Not nice. That's just practical. We need everyone at their best."

"And you've saved more innocent lives than anyone I've ever met."

Shepard frowned. "Goto, we've left behind a body count that numbers in the thousands."

"Sure," Kasumi agreed readily, "But you didn't shoot at a single person who didn't aim a gun at you first. Do you know, I think you're the most precise shot I've ever seen – biotics or pistols. Those head shots of yours – they're amazing. You could be shooting into a crowd and only hit the target. You're that controlled."

"Yeah, well, biotics have to be controlled." Shepard frowned as she spoke the words.

Kaidan had once said a similar thing. _I'm no more controlled than any other biotic._ That was bullshit, Shepard thought. He was the most controlled biotic she had ever seen. He was more controlled than she was, even.

_Controlled enough to go off and sleep with some doctor without a thought for me,_ Shepard thought, irritably. She found she was grinding her teeth together.

"You've impressed me, Shepard," Kasumi said. "And I'm not easily impressed."

"Well," Shepard shrugged. "That's something at least." She shook her head. "I should go. I need to get out of this armor."

"Come by later," Kasumi told her. "I'm sure I'll have more to talk about."

Shepard chuckled at that. The thief was silent when in stealth mode, but she made up for it on the ship by being one of the most chatty persons aboard. Only Tali beat her out for the conversationalist award.

"Maybe later, then."

Shepard walked a little more slowly and deliberately than usual to the elevator. She nodded to a passing serviceman, hoping that no one would notice how tipsy she was. The second the elevator doors closed on her, however, she sighed and pounded her head twice against the wall.

"Over soon," she mumbled to herself. "It will be over soon."

By the time she reached her quarters, Shepard was practically falling asleep on her feet. She stumbled into the doorway, then winced at the sudden buzzing sensation that shot through her skull.

_Your own fault for drinking_, she thought, half-tripping down the stairs. Shepard reached the foot of her bed, sat down, and pulled off one boot.

Then, overcome with alcohol and fatigue, she lay down and fell instantly asleep, still fully dressed in her armor.

* * *

In his dream, Kaidan entered a dark laboratory. Monsters scratched at a biotic wall, then broke free from stasis as the barriers dropped. Screams and the blasts of gunfire filled the air. Kaidan fought for his life, firing shot after shot at the monstrous insects and at ghostly figures dressed in stark white and black lab coats. He grabbed one man by the head and snapped his neck; he tossed an insect creature into the wall with his biotics.

Then, as suddenly as the fight had begun, it stopped. In the still, quiet room, a body lay on the floor, dressed in an admiral's uniform.

"Kohoku," Kaidan whispered. He crouched down, rolled the body over...

He found himself staring down into Shepard's face, her face smashed and covered in blood, her bright, blue eyes staring lifelessly to the ceiling.

Kaidan woke from the nightmare in a cold sweat.

* * *

Shepard woke when the ship lurched violently. For a split second, she remembered waking in the Lazarus facility, that horrible feeling of disorientation before cold reality washed over her. Seeing her cabin, however, she remembered where she was. She scrambled out of bed as the ship lurched again.

"What's going on, Joker?" she snapped, firing up her comm link.

There was no answer. Shepard grabbed her boot from where it lay on the floor, and ran to the elevator. She was still in her armor, which was disgusting, but convenient. She shivered; her back was cold from her own in dried sweat.

As the elevator descended one floor, Shepard laced up her boot and tried the comm link again. Nothing. As soon as the doors open, she dashed out, ignoring the surprised look that the yeoman gave to her. Shepard raced to the helm, stumbling a little as the ship pitched once more.

"What's with all the chop, Joker?" she asked the helmsman, grabbing hold of his chair from behind. "And why the hell weren't you answering my call?"

"What?" Joker snapped, not looking back at her. "You didn't call me."

"Yes I..." Shepard blinked. "What the hell is that?"

Looming before them was a shape that haunted her dreams: squid-like, but jointed; insect-like, but fluid. The outline of the Reapers was just organic enough to suggest intelligent life, but far to alien to suggest anything comforting. Shepard swallowed, hoping her unease would not show.

"And that would be our brown dwarf," Joker replied, gritting his teeth. "I'll talk in a minute. I'm trying to keep us from getting torn apart by solar winds."

Shepard nodded grimly. To her left, EDI's blue holographic sphere pulsed slightly.

"Commander," the AI said politely, "your comm link is still switched off."

"I...what?" Shepard frowned.

"You shut it off after I reminded you not to enter the men's restroom. I believe you got confused as to where my voice was coming from."

"Oh," Shepard said. She remembered that now – and how she'd grumbled at EDI to mind her own business. While EDI couldn't make a judgment about Shepard's drinking, Shepard felt a little sheepish all the same.

Well, hell, she thought, turning her comm link back on. No better way to begin a dangerous mission on a derelict reaper than to do it hung over.

The ship suddenly stopped shaking.

"I guess we entered the Reaper's artificial gravity well," Joker told her. Shepard frowned.

"If that thing still has systems active, who knows what it's capable of," she said darkly.

"It's dead though, right?"

Shepard raised an eyebrow at her helmsman. "Yeah. And the Collector Ship was disabled, remember?"

"Do you think this is another trap?" Joker asked, his frown mirroring hers.

"Might be," she said. "Keep an eye out and be ready to pick us up at a moment's notice."

"So, standard procedure," Joker replied.

In spite of her headache and the growing knot in her stomach, Shepard gave him a wry smile. "Yeah," she said. "Same as always."

"Alright," Joker said, nodding. "Eye of the hurricane, here we come."


	63. Sapients

Author's Note: Alright! It has been a long time since I update (sorry, sorry!) for two reasons. 1) I've been working on my original fic, too. And 2) I've been very sick lately. Nothing to worry about, only when one is feeling bleah, it's hard to summon creativity for any project at all.

So, **The original fiction is now LIVE.** My web page link (on my profile page) now points to , which is hosting my original, serial work.

edit: that's taking a little time to update the new site. it's unsettledworld . com (no spaces), fyi.

A summary of the new work, Unsettled, would be difficult, but it's sort of a post-apocalyptic western. Only it's post-apocalyptic without nuclear winter, cyber-punkish, but without much tech, and steam-punkish without goggles or airships. There are elements of western movies, anime, and Recency/Victorian-era romance thrown in. Hah! I always did like to mix my genres. If that makes any sense and sounds at all appealing, please check it out. Like fanfic, it's free. You can subscribe for updates and there is a paid Kindle version through the Amazon store or you can just read it on the website.

That fic and this fic will likely slow down in production over the holidays (and as I get over the bleahs), but I am still writing, even if at a slower pace.

* * *

And now, back to our regularly scheduled Shenko:

_Chapter 63_

_(Sapients)_

Kaidan rolled out of bed, turned on the lights, and squinted against the sudden glare. When he looked up, he caught sight of himself in the mirror and frowned. He was looking pretty lousy these days, he thought. He'd lost weight, his eyes were ringed with a faint bluish, bruise-like color, and though he had been shaving regularly, he looked unkempt. With a sigh, he collected a towel and his bath things and headed down the hall.

Apartments on the Presidium were expensive, plumbing being the costliest part. So while he counted himself lucky to have a small room all to himself, Kaidan had to go down the hall to use the common bathroom for his floor. This early in the morning, only one lone elcor was in the toilets, so Kaidan was able to speed through his shower and shave and get back to his room before 0500. Not sure what to do with himself until the embassy offices opened up at 0800, Kaidan decided to go get a coffee. He packed up a few of his critical data pads and headed out to the Presidium.

The coffee shop he most often frequented was almost completely deserted. It was tucked away into a corner near the human embassies, overlooking a quiet corner of the lakes. Kaidan couldn't imagine what the rent cost on such a place, even small as it was, but the owner had clearly done it up in style. It look like some sort of mashup between a British library and a Parisian cafe. Kaidan found the effect soothing, given that so much of the Citadel was stark, metallic and decidedly alien. Though most days he managed to ignore it, he would forever be aware of the fact that the whole station was really a giant Reaper construct. He had even realized, looking at some schematics of the Council Chambers once, that certain rooms actually resembled Reapers in their layout and design.

Kaidan ordered his coffee black, then sat at the bar with a data pad in hand. One lone hanar was there as well. Just then, the news started up on a screen above the bar. Kaidan looked up as the report began to detail the latest anti-human protest that had begun down in the Wards over the weekend.

"I'll turn that off," a voice said. Kaidan blinked as an asari switched off the screen.

"Don't want to drive away my early-bird customer," she added with a grin.

"Oh," Kaidan said. "That's not..."

"Hey," she said, waving a hand as she started making a drink. "You were flaring as you glared at the screen." The asari finished the drink with remarkable speed and handed it over to the waiting salarian, who thanked her and left. "So," she said, wiping down her station. "You a biotic?"

"Huh?" Kaidan blinked. "Yeah." He paused a moment, then asked, "I was flaring?"

"Yeah," she said. "I guess you don't like the news much."

"Not really," he admitted.

"L3, L4 or L5?" the asari asked.

"L2," Kaidan said after a moment's hesitation.

"Shit not!" the asari said brightly. "That's amazing." At Kaidan's furrowed expression she paused. "Did I say that wrong?"

"Ah..."

"Oh, right. It's 'no shit,'" she laughed. "You humans have so many interesting phrases." She set down her towel and sighed wistfully. "Interesting phrases, interesting cultures...and amazing drinks! When I opened this shop, I had no idea how hard it would be to learn them all. Such a challenge."

"Wait," Kaidan blinked. "This is _your_ place?"

"Sure is," the asari said proudly.

"I thought it belonged to that human..."

"Mike?" she snapped. "Goddess!" She shook her head. "What _is_ it with human men? They still think only a man can run things."

"No, no," Kaidan said, quickly. "It's just...he often gives the orders and you..."

"He _tried_ to give the orders," she said, a glint in her eye. "But we had a little talk. It's hard to fire people given the unions and all, but I managed it in the end."

"Sorry," Kaidan mumbled. "Didn't mean to offend."

"Nah, it's okay," the asari said, resuming her usual smile. "If people think a human runs this place, then I'm flattered. That was my point in making it – to recreate Earth."

"Oh," Kaidan said. Looking around, he could see now, that there was a subtle something about the place that didn't look quite human. The way the framed photo of the Space Needle was right next to a photo of a puppy, for example, suggested that the person who put it all together had mashed up several cultures without quite understanding them. Not unlike the China Eats Buffet chain back home in Canada, Kaidan thought.

"So," the asari went on, finishing a second drink and passing it off to another asari. "You from earth?"

"Uh, yeah, Vancouver," Kaidan said.

"Really?" her eyes brightened. "I've been to Seattle!"

Kaidan nodded, refraining from pointing out that these were two entirely different cities in entirely different countries. But, he figured, the climates were similar, and the asari probably didn't know any better.

"I am _so_ into human stuff," the asari went on. "Just...human books, human music, human history, human _hair_."

"Hair?" Kaidan blinked.

"Not the men's hair," the asari shrugged. "It's boring. I mean...no offense. Yours looks a little...springy. What kind of bloodline of human are you?" Before Kaidan could answer, she went blithely on. "It's the women with long black, silky hair that get me every time."

"Oh?" Kaidan asked, politely.

"Oh, yeah," the asari laughed. She nodded to her newest customer. "The usual?" Then she got to work with frothing up milk and Kaidan missed what she said next. When she returned, Kaidan didn't even have to ask her to repeat herself, because she launched right into her subject with enthusiasm.

"Human women," she said authoritatively, "are just the most amazing thing to ever happen to this galaxy. Have you heard the theory that humans are really descended from asari that were taken by the Protheans to earth and then you males evolved out of the females? Waste of evolution if you ask me. No offense."

"Uhh..." Kaidan could think of any counter arguments to this theory, but said nothing.

"Anyhow, the asari have tried to mate with other species to improve our bloodlines ever since we found aliens. But salarians and elcor and turians look..." she broke off and spoke low, eying the hanar in the corner. "Well," she said, "they look – you know, alien. But human women – oh, goddess!" Kaidan's eyes widened a little at the expression of rapture on her face.

"Ha!" she laughed, seeing his reaction. "Isn't that the quandary of the past two centuries? Here you human males have a thing for asari, and yet we asari only have eyes for your women. Why, even the batarians like your human women – nasty creeps with their sicko four eyes." She frowned. "Not that I have anything against batarians personally, other than that most of them are slavers and icky. Anyhow. Human women. Goddess. The only bad thing is you're so all short lived."

"You...lost someone, then?" Kaidan asked gently.

"Huh?" she said. "Oh, no. Not so lucky to have had a human lover. Not yet. Oh, goddess. I'm working on it." She broke off at Kaidan's raised eyebrows. "Ha!" she laughed. "Short story," she said, starting in on another drink, this time for an annoyed-looking elderly human male. "My parents are rich. Mom's a matriarch, dad's a salarian – ha! Bet you couldn't figure _that_ out, the way I chatter. I was just a fling. Anyhow, mom figured I'd do the merc-and-stripper thing, but when I was only forty she took me on a trip to earth and I fell in _love,_ I tell you." She handed the drink to the human without looking at him, then she wiped her hands on her towel and turned her attention back to Kaidan again.

"I loved the food, the colors. Goddess, did you know that in the east they wear white to mourn death and in the west they use it for bond ceremonies? Isn't that _crazy_? And the coffee. Goddess, I fell in love with the coffee. I see you here a lot. I take it you like coffee, too."

"Yeah," Kaidan said.

"So when I realized mom had this whole bank fund set aside to bail me out of jail a few times – I mean, that's pretty common for asari maidens and all – I told her I'd rather just open up a coffee shop on earth. She was horrified, I tell you what. Thought I was going into my matron stage decades early. Took me to a couple doctors and then a shrink. Ha! I love that human phrase: _shrink. _But turns out that's just me, you know? Maybe I'm faster at stages of life 'cause of my dad. Oh, hang on a second."

A few moments later, after getting a chai tea for an elcor, she was back. "So yeah, mom and I compromised. I could have the money if I stayed in asari space. She wants me to end up with some rich turian – like her first bondmate. I want a human woman, obviously. So here's where I settled. Not too shabby a crib, yeah?"

"Uh, yeah," Kaidan said as she filled a drink to the brim with foam and handed it off to a salarian.

"So yeah," she said, coming back to talk to Kaidan. "I've been trying to meet the right human girl. It's the matron part of me. I don't want a fling, but it's really hard to find the right girl, you know?"

"Yeah," Kaidan muttered, a wealth of meaning in that one syllable.

"So tell me," the asari said. "What do human women like? I mean, how do you go about finding the right one?"

"Uh..." Kaidan said, completely drawing a blank on how to answer that question.

"Okay," the asari said, leaning over the counter. "Think on that one and answer me this: you're a biotic. Do biotics freak human women out?"

"Uh...depends on the woman," Kaidan answered. He thought a moment, then added. "But mostly, it does."

"Right," the asari sighed. "I was afraid of that. Goddess, the last girl I asked out never stopped by the store again. Oooh! You know what human I think is so sexy?"

Kaidan hazarded a guess. "Commander Shepard?"

"Oh," the asari said, pulling back. "No. Well, I mean, yeah. She's adorable. I just want to squish her when I see her on the vids."

"Squish her?" Kaidan blinked.

"Yeah, as in hug."

"Oh."

"So glad she's alive and all. Tragic waste of a woman when she died. No, I am into..._her._" the asari nodded to a portrait on the wall.

"Um..."

"Ajit Zakir," the asari breathed. "Goddess, she's beautiful. I love dark hair. Shepard's too fair. See, we asari are all one color, so it's the dark hair and eyes that I love."

Kaidan just nodded as the asari went on to detail all the human women, living and passed on, that she found lovely.

"And Coco Chanel and Norah Jones," she concluded. "They had such style. I only wish I could, too. Well, I guess I'll just have to keep searching, huh?"

"I guess," Kaidan said. "But hey, if you make coffee this good, you're bound to find someone some day."

"Yeah?" she grinned. "Hey, you're alright. For competition, that is."

"Competition?"

"Or are you into human men?"

"Ah, no," Kaidan said.

"Ah well. Too bad for me," she sighed. "You are competition then. You got a sister?"

"What?" he choked out a laugh. "No."

"Darn. No ex-girlfriends I could help rebound from you, huh?"

Kaidan shook his head, too amused by her candor to be offended. "I think my ex already moved on," he said. Then his voice dropped off as he realized what he'd said.

"Oh," she said, frowning. "Okay, bad move. Stuck my hand in my mouth. Tell you what, have another coffee."

"That's okay," Kaidan said, looking up and catching sight of the clock. "My office will be open soon. I'd better go."

"Then one to go," she said, already making up his favorite brew with lightening speed. "On me."

"Alright," he said.

"No problem!" she smiled. "And anytime you want to talk about Seattle, stop by."

"I'm not from...Seattle," Kaidan said, but she'd already turned to talk to an elegant human diplomat with her elegant hair drawn back into a bun. Kaidan chuckled, took his coffee and left. He wasn't there when the asari turned the vid screen back on, just in time to a vid of Commander Shepard, giving a certain news reporter the set down of her life.

"That Shepard is beautiful," the asari commented to her next customer, an impatient volus. "But me, I'd prefer that reporter Emily Wong any day of the week."

* * *

Shepard squeezed the trigger and drilled the target holo right between its glowing eyes.

"A perfect hit," the training program said in its cheerful, VI voice. Shepard grimaced and shot the target again.

"A perfect hit."

"A perfect -"

"A perf-"

"A per-"

"A-"

"A-"

"Shut up," Shepard snarled, drilling the target once more. She didn't want to heard mechanical voices just now. It was funny, she reflected, how her rigid schedule had kept the crew so busy – and now she was resenting it for just that reason. Garrus was calibrating the weapons – again. Jacob was busy cleaning the firearms, Miranda was busy with reports, Samara and Thane seemed to live for their meditations and even Kelly had nothing newto say to her. No, Shepard reflected bitterly, the only being that was available to talk right now was...

"Shepard-Commander."

Shepard started, swinging her gun to aim it right at the geth that had sneaked up behind her. It was true, she thought, absently. The get were perfect ambushers, no matter what Ashley had said about them having light bulbs for heads. She suddenly wondered what Ashley would say about the fact that she'd recently woken up this geth and allowed it to join the crew.

"Shepard-Commander, we must speak to you."

"I just spoke to you," Shepard told the geth. "Why aren't you in the AI hub?"

"Shepard commander has not ordered that we remain in confinement," the geth replied.

"No," Shepard said, frowning. "I guess I didn't."

"We have reached a consensus," the geth went on. "We wish to ask you a question. But first, 508 of our runtimes wish to know what you are doing."

"What I'm doing?" Shepard waved at the holo behind her. "This is target practice." She turned and drilled the holo once more.

"Practice?" the geth repeated.

"Yeah, practice."

"We know this word," the geth said. "But we do not understand it. If one has a program, one runs it. One does not need to run it needlessly when the program is not called for."

"If you're human you do," Shepard said. "Or rather, if you're sapient, you do." He mouth set in a grim line as she explained. "We're not like you. We don't do things all in one go. It isn't on or off for us. It's all percentages in between. If I want to shoot correctly in battle, I need to train my muscles and mind to work together to do it."

"This is faulty programming," the geth observed.

"Yeah, well, tell it to the programmer," Shepard muttered.

The geth's head shifted slightly, as if it was drawing two mechanical brows together in confusion.

"We do not understand," it said. "We can hit the target every time."

"Sure," Shepard said. "As long as your hardware platform doesn't wear out and you don't make a mistake in calculations."

"We would not make such mistakes."

"And we can," Shepard replied testily, holstering her pistol. "But we also dream, so I'd say it's a fair trade."

The geth seemed to cock its head as it regarded her. Shepard pursed her lips, then decided to speak her mind.

"I don't trust you, geth," she said flatly. "I understand people - sapients. I sense who I can trust and who I can't and I've learn to trust my you – I don't get you and I'm not sure if I care to."

"Shepard-Commander tensed when we were named," the geth said, its central flashbulb-eye turning slightly to the left. "Shepard-Commander's heart rate increased at that moment."

"Are you aware of the story EDI suggested we name you after?" Shepard asked.

"Gospel of Mark..."

"Yeah, but the implications – the meaning?" When the geth said nothing, Shepard went on, "Legion was the name of a host of demons tormenting a man. Christ cast them out. You being named after unrepentant beings of evil is _not_ exactly a recommendation in your favor."

"Shepard-Commander is religious," the geth observed.

"Shepard-Commander knows the story," Shepard replied shortly. "I don't know if I should think of you as a person or many people or a computer. But since I don't think you offend the same way that other beings do, I also feel I can be honest with you: I have killed hundreds – maybe even thousands of geth. I did it to defend myself and other humans. I will not hesitate to kill you if I get even the merest _hint_ that you are about to compromise me and my crew."

The geth paused at this, it's flashbulb light turning slightly to the right now.

"Then why did Shepard-Commander wake us?"

"Good question," Shepard said, shutting down the holo-training program. "I'm still asking myself that." She sighed. "Curiosity, I guess. And you saved my life back there. In a system of honor, that means I owe you one. Don't make me regret it."

"We have no intention to hasten our own demise," Legion replied.

"Good," Shepard said curtly. "Just remember. You're not my pet robot. You're on probation. If you don't know what that means, go look it up."

"Probation. Noun..."

"I didn't mean that literally," Shepard said, rolling her eyes.

The geth seemed to nod. "Shepard-Commander is cautious. Understandably so. We wish to explain our part in Shepard's fight with the heretics."

"Ah yes," Shepard said, "Heretics." She realized she was using air quotes, frowned, and dropped her hands.

"Shepard-Commander does not believe us."

"Not really."

"Then," Legion said, "we wish to explain. We need help."

"Don't we all," Shepard muttered. "Alright. While EDI's getting the IFF installed, I guess we have time for one more errand. Let's hear about it."


	64. Identify FriendFoe

_Chapter 64:_

_(identify friend/foe)_

* * *

Okay, been AWOL, busy, working on my own fic, life, etc., blah, blah, blah.

(BTW,check my profile for a linky to my free, online web fic if you like post-apocalyptic Westerns with a funky cyberpunk twist. :D)

Excuses, excuses. Whatever. I updated! Woo hoo! I _do_, in fact, have an ending to this story planned. And I continue to plod towards that ending.

Okay, **Note 1:** I _never_ know how to deal with the geth mission. I've played it both ways. Isn't that just the craziest decision in the game? I think so.

And **Note 2**, re: the Kelly part of this chapter: Seriously, _watch her_ when you go to install the IFF. I caught this odd little thing the last time I did an ME2 playthrough, and so I'm riffing off of it for this fic. The woman is up to no good, I tell you.

* * *

Councilor Anderson frowned as he looked over the files.

They were well-organized and well-written, if a little overly technical, and yet, there was something in them that unsettled him.

He tapped his finger against the edge of the datapad as he read the report again.

_Ship class: unknown.  
__Ship profile: images taken from Horizon security camera footage indicate possible match with other security camera records.  
__Likelihood of match: 78%._

Anderson set the datapad down and leaned back in his chair.

That was it, he thought. The report was overly technical. And given that the staff commander had served with Shepard, it was strange that the reports were so unflinchingly clinical. From what Anderson understood, the lieutenant had been trusted by the former Spectre – friendly, even. Shepard had been well-respected by her crew, he gathered, but beyond that, he couldn't make out anything.

Much rested on Shepard's choices right now, and he simply didn't know enough about her to predict what those choices would be.

He'd certainly tried to get information about her, but he kept coming up with nothing. Her official reports of her mission to capture Saren were as dry and clinical as Alenko's reports were. In fact, he thought with a sudden realization, it wouldn't surprise him if the staff commander had been helping his commanding officer write her reports back then. Either way, he'd gained little insight into Shepard from her own writings. His questions to Alenko were answered plainly, but blandly. And as for the rest of her crew, the ones he'd tracked down were surprisingly close-mouthed about everything that had happened on the first Normandy. Years after the fact, some were still in treatment for post-traumatic stress because of the Collector attack. Yet, even in their sessions with the Alliance councilors, the crew said little about the commander.

Anderson frowned as he sat back heavily in his chair. He knew what the stakes were for Shepard. He knew the pressure mounting against Hackett and the other brass to send out a party to bring Shepard in. He knew the accusations leveled at her – that she was mentally unstable and a potential psychopath. Being with Cerberus wasn't helping her cause, either. He suspected she was a decent person, but he simply couldn't prove it.

When he'd first met her, Shepard had seemed an intelligent, decent sort of soldier. She'd also seemed driven and ambitious – but in the way that wanted to accomplish great things rather than be recognized for them. She'd seemed a perfect candidate for a Spectre, and he'd been right about that. But as for her character – well, there Anderson had to admit he knew really very little about her. He had psych reports on her – all vague. He had video-ops and press-releases – all inconclusive. He had been her commander for a short time, but he now saw that only those who had been under her command ever got a clear picture of her. She had always been guarded when dealing with the brass.

The trouble was, Anderson thought, a lot now rested on Shepard's shoulders, and if he was wrong about her, and she _was_ unstable and she _did_ fail to stop the Collectors and then the Reapers, then who would pick up the pieces? The council didn't have a single back-up plan should Shepard fail to stop the Collectors. Hell, they hadn't even had a plan. He had been the one to authorize the GARDIAN project, after all. As for the Alliance, they were mired in politics these days, and Shepard was a sore subject for everyone.

And so, Anderson thought, this was why he'd spent so much time gathering up information about Shepard's dealings. His contact on the SR2 gave him regular reports on Shepard's comings and goings and brought him general ship-board info, but couldn't access anything more privileged. Anderson kept thinking Staff Commander Alenko would turn up something useful, but so far, all he'd gotten from that corner were datapads full of facts. They were useful facts, to be sure, but nothing giving him any insight into Shepard. Shepard was still an unknown here. And the councilor didn't like unknowns.

Anderson sighed and leaned forward to call for his secretary.

"Sir?"

"Is Staff Commander Alenko scheduled for a meeting?" he asked in clipped tones.

"Not until next Monday, sir," the young corporal replied.

Anderson thought for a moment, then said, "Have him come in today, if he's able."

"Yes, sir."

As Anderson sat back, his gaze flicked to the other datapad on his desk, the one he'd read and re-read all last night.

Well, he thought, if Shepard happened to fail, then _someone _would need to head up Plan B.

* * *

"Shepard." Miranda's heels came clicking across the command deck. As Shepard wearily turned from her computer and rubbed her shoulders, she wondered how it was that Miranda could walk in those things, let alone fight in them. As it was, Shepard felt exhausted. Fighting in no-air environments did that to a body.

"Is this really your mission report?" Miranda asked, holding up a data pad.

"Surprised I got it done so fast or surprised that I used spellcheck this time?" Shepard replied, throwing her shoulders back so as to look a little more like a commander than she felt.

"Surprised at what you _did_," Miranda said, a tiny furrow pinching her brow. She glanced at the data pad, then back at Shepard. "Are you sure that's wise?"

"Questioning me again, Miranda?" Shepard said, wearily. "Do I really need to explain the chain of command again?"

"No," Miranda said, quickly. "It's just that..." she looked around, the lowered her voice. "You had Tali with you. What did the quarian say?"

"Surprisingly little," Shepard replied, wryly. That was an understatement. Shepard would have thought Tali would have a clear opinion on the fate of the geth heretics. Instead, the engineer had simply been baffled by Legion's choice to place the fate of his people in Shepard's hands. And no one had been more baffled than Shepard herself.

Tough calls were something she was used to, but that one had been the strangest of all: re-write the geth programs to accept their previous programming or blow them up? In the past, Shepard had at least understood the stakes on either side of each issue. Civilians in enemy territory? Get them out fast and silent. Terrorists with hostages, demanding escape? Sadly, Alliance rules were clear about that sort of thing. But this – she had no idea what to think of the geth, which meant she had no idea how to treat them. If they were people, wouldn't re-writing be brainwashing? Or would it be un-brainwashing? And would blowing them up be morally wrong if they weren't really 'alive' to start with? Her first instict had been to explode the problem since she couldn't understand it. But then she'd paused, and realized she had no idea what she ought to do.

Truth was, she still didn't.

But she wasn't about to admit that, so instead, Shepard just hitched her shoulders again.

"I made my decision," she said, then winced as a sharp, pinching pain cut through her forehead.

"Are you alright?" Miranda asked.

"Headache," Shepard replied. "It will pass."

"You get those a lot," Miranda observed.

"Only at the computers," Shepard said. "Must be the screens. I think they upset the L5 implants."

"That's impossible," Miranda said in her clipped, authoritative way. "I have the same implants as you and I never experience any trouble with screens of any kind."

"And yet, we're not all you, Lawson," Shepard replied. She winced further as the pain deepened. Funny how regular these headaches were, she thought. They sort of pulsed in long waves, like one long, painful hum, and then would end for a minute before beginning again.

"You don't get those headaches from using your omnitool though," Miranda observed. "And you use your 'tool all the time."

"Like I said," Shepard replied. "It's the computer screens."

"Is it?" Miranda asked. She turned to Kelly, who seemed quite absorbed in her work. "Chambers," Miranda said. "Does the light here bother you?"

"Not at all," Kelly said quickly. "Well, sometimes. But...yes, now that you mention it, that must be it, the light."

Shepard's eyes narrowed instantly. "Is there something wrong with my computer, Chambers?"

"Nothing at all," Kelly said quickly.

"Well, that settles it," Shepard said, shutting the lid of the computer with a hard click. "Your boss bugged my computer and it's interfering with my implants." Shepard curtly nodded to the two other women. "I'll be in my quarters."

"The IFF is almost ready, commander," EDI's polite voice interrupted. "I was about to install it and run the initial tests."

"Can you finish it up while I'm napping?" Shepard asked, testily.

"I believe so," EDI replied.

"Commander," Kelly said in a voice that was both hesitant and insistent, "The Illusive Man has an urgent mission he needs you to see to."

"Surely that can wait," Miranda said.

"The Illusive Man said it can't," Kelly pressed.

"What is it that he just can't wait for?" Shepard asked, rubbing the aching spot on her forehead.

"He needs you and all the ground crew to take the shuttle to Omega," Kelly informed her. "He has a shipment he wants you to pick up."

"What, he ran out of cigarettes and gin?" Though Shepard intended the last statement to be under her breath, Miranda obviously heard and snickered a little. Kelly just shook her head earnestly.

"It's something for your final mission," she said. "He wouldn't be more precise."

"And we all need to go get it?" Shepard made a face. "Send Grunt. He needs to get out of the cargo bay. Just send Garrus with Grunt, so the kid doesn't get himself shot."

"The order was for all of you to go," Kelly said.

Shepard paused, looking from the officer to the yeoman and back. "Why?" she asked, suspicious.

"I have no idea," Miranda replied with a shrug. "No doubt there is something sensitive in that shipment."

"And he needs us to sneak it back onto the Normandy?" Shepard asked. "All of us? From Omega? What the hell could be too sensitive for Omega?"

When Miranda just shrugged again and Kelly looked at her with wide, kohl-rimmed eyes, Shepard, just sighed and pinched her forehead again.

"Okay, fine. Does this mean I have to wait for a nap?"

"Well..." Kelly began.

"Right," Shepard muttered. "I guess we all know who really runs this ship. Bastard." She pressed the intercom button and spoke into it.

"Attention ground crew. There's been a change of plans. Suit up and meet me at the shuttle in the cargo bay. You will be briefed upon arrival. Flight Lieutenant Moreau is the senior officer until our return."

"What the hell?" Joker's voice crackled back over the comm.

"Deal with it, Joker," Shepard said back to him, trying not to laugh at the way this conversation must sound to the crew. "You and EDI can hold down the fort until we get back."

"Well don't leave the oven on when you leave or you might find the place burned down," Joker grumbled before clicking out.

"Is that wise?" Kelly asked.

"He outranks you," Shepard told her with narrowed eyes. "And while Cerberus likes to do away with rank, I'm not Cerberus. So follow his orders as you would mine."

"Very well," Kelly said, lips pursed.

"Okay," Shepard said, turning to the women beside her. "I'm going back upstairs to suit up. Lawson, get your things together and meet me at the shuttle." With a sigh, she turned and headed to the elevator.

"Shepard," Miranda called. Shepard paused and turned, trying not to look as annoyed as she felt at the prospect of yet another mission and still no nap.

"We're getting close to our goal," the Cerberus officer told her. "We need you well. And if your implants are having flare-ups..."

"Thank you for your concern, Miranda," Shepard said, wearily. "But I'll be fine."

"It's just that Mordin might have some insight that Doctor Chakwas doesn't. You might try..."

"Maybe later" Shepard said. "Let's get this mission done first."

"Yes, Commander," Miranda nodded.

Shepard got into the elevator and took it upstairs. Miranda waited until it returned and then took the lift downstairs.

And so neither of them noticed that as soon as they had finished talking, Yeoman Chambers left her post at the CIC and headed towards the armory door. She slipped past Jacob, who was too busy checking weapons for the entire squad to leave on a ground mission to note her presence. And then she continued around the corner, into the debriefing room, and stepped forward towards the table.

As if her arrival was expected, the table dropped into the floor, and Kelly stepped onto it. A grid of yellow light washed over her, and the image of the Illusive Man flickered in the air.

"Is the IFF device ready?" he asked at once.

"It is," Kelly replied.

"And the entire ground crew will be away for the test?" he continued.

"They're preparing for their departure," Kelly replied. The hesitated, then added, "Shepard seemed very tired."

"No doubt she is." The Illusive Man nodded. "That is fine. Ideal, in fact, for this moment."

"Her implants are bothering her," Kelly went on.

"Yes, I'm aware of that," the Illusive Man blew out a puff of cigarette smoke. "She's a much stronger biotic than I expected. I imagine that whatever system we'd given her, she'd use it to full capacity. It's not surprising that she wears herself out."

Kelly paused a moment, then ventured: "Her mental state seems – unsteady."

The Illusive Man seemed amused at this remark.

"How so?"

"Well," Kelly said, frowning. "I'm not sure how to explain it. I've gone over her profile multiple times, and the pieces don't fit at all. But whatever she was, I sense that she is...changing."

The Illusive Man smiled at this.

"It's like she used to be steady, but I sense this...spinning in her - as if she's a ship looking for harbor."

"You always had a gift for the metaphor, Chambers," the Illusive Man remarked.

"She doesn't trust me," Kelly said, a trifle irritably, "and I can't get any sort of proper answer out of her. I think she actually enjoys pushing me away."

"You were supposed to gain her trust," her employer told her flatly. Kelly ducked her head.

"I know," she said.

"I suppose that in your case, familiarity bred contempt," the Illusive Man said with a shrug. "However, what's done is done. Your work at her side has done more than enough to gain me the information I need. Well done, Chambers."

"Thank you, sir," Kelly said, smiling with pleasure.

"Now," he went on. "Things are coming to a delicate pass, and timing is key. I need you to follow your next instructions exactly."

"I will, sir."

"Good," the Illusive Man said, his eyes glowing as he smiled at the yeoman. "Because if you do, we are certain to succeed in drawing Shepard to the end of this path."


	65. Endgame 1: Pilot

Note: Thus begins the endgame sequence. Enjoy.

* * *

_Chapter 65:_

_Pilot _

_(Endgame 1)_

* * *

_(flashback: 1 and 1/2 years ago, Alliance chambers on the Citadel. 0932 hours)_

"Are you going to answer me?"

Silence filled the white-walled room.

"This would be much easier if you would talk. More effective, too."

"What? 'We have ways of making you talk' and all that shit? Forget this, I'm done." The man sat up as if to rise, then grunted in pain.

"Lie down, lieutenant. We have more to talk about."

With a grimace, the man fell onto his back once more.

"Damn it." He scrubbed his face. "Alright," he said, pulling his baseball cap over his face. "Wake me when my hour's up."

The prim woman frowned from her chair, re-crossed her legs and tried another tack.

"Flight Lieutenant Moreau -"

"Joker."

"Flight Lieutenant _Moreau_," she said sharply. "You have avoided your sessions here to the point that your superiors have intervened. You have acted very _flippant_ when we talk..."

"Still wishing you'd taken me up on my offer?" Joker asked with a grin. He still didn't take the cap off his face, but his tongue darted out to lick his lips. The woman's frown deepened.

"And your lab results came back far above the allowed limit," she finished.

"Aw, come on," Joker frowned. "A drink or two off-duty doesn't hurt anyone."

"There's far more in you than drink," the woman said. Joker just shrugged. The doctor waited for a moment more, then sighed.

"Lieutenant, all indications are that you've suffered a great deal of trauma and are suffering from survivor's guilt as well. If you don't talk about this..."

"Now _that's_ where you're wrong," Joker interrupted, leaving his hat over his face. "I don't feel guilty about what happened. I don't feel shit about it. People died. My ship got blown to hell and it was all a goddamn mess. I don't feel anything about any of it. It's over and done and I can't do anything about it."

"Lieutenant..."

"Look," Joker said, pushing back his hat and rolling onto his side. "I'll tell you what I really need right now. Right now, I gotta shit and it's a long way to the toilets from your office. Unless you want me to use the wastebasket or something, but I warn you, Alliance rations do a number on my stomach."

The doctor glared again briefly before schooling her features into calm. "You're deliberately trying to provoke me."

"Damn straight."

"Lieutenant, your commanding officer died trying to save you..."

"And _I_ tried to die going down with the ship like the pilot's supposed to do. Shepard took that away from me. _She_ screwed it all up by dying on us."

"So you blaming the commander for what happened?" The doctor asked, her voice suspiciously neutral.

"What the fuck is this?" Joker snapped. "Judge and jury?"

"I am making no judgment," the woman replied. "I am merely wondering whom _you_ are judging – Shepard, or yourself?"

Snapping his hat off, Joker hauled himself to his feet.

"Fuck you," he told her. The doctor blinked at him. Joker scowled, then slammed his hat back on his head and headed for the door.

"We're not done here, Lieutenant," the doctor told him.

"First," he said, turning around as quickly as he could manage, "it's _Joker_. Second, I don't care what the brass says about me needing these sessions. I need this like I need a flight of stairs to run up and down every day. Go play Freud with someone else, lady. I'm done with this."

"Off to the Wards again?" the woman asked, raising an eyebrow.

"The therapy's a hell of a lot better down there," he replied.

With that, Joker hauled himself out of the door and headed for the nearest transport station. As he hobbled along, he could feel his temper rising.

_Goddamn shrink,_ he thought. _She was hot, too. Thought I might have a chance with her. But she's as bad as the rest of them._

Joker saw the transport station appear around a corner, about 50 meters away. Sometimes, he wished the Citadel wasn't so big. Because now, from here to there, and all through the cab ride, and all the way from the Ward stop to the nearest bar, he was going to be thinking about this latest accusation to be thrown in his face.

Joker couldn't decide what stung more: the veiled accusations from strangers, the "polite" disinterest of therapists and investigators, or the bitter loathing of his former friends. At least Alenko had been completely up front his disgust – Garrus, too. Their anger had been like a knife that went in to his gut and came out cleanly. But these endless evaluations were like being pricked with envenomed needles.

_Step. Step. Step._

Joker tried not to think as the transport station plodded slowly closer, but he couldn't help but remember. Damn the shrink for that.

He should have gone down with the ship, he thought, clinging to that idea as if it were his lifeline. He should have gone down with the ship. It was a fitting end for a pilot – especially one like him. He'd always known with his condition that his ship was his surrogate body. If the ship died, he died – that was the simple and inescapable truth.

But Shepard screwed that up. She came to "save" Joker, when he only wanted the chance to pull the Normandy out of the ashes. And then Shepard died – the one they needed most of all.

Even after all this time, Joker couldn't summon up guilt over Shepard's death – not guilt like the therapists thought he had, not guilt like his old friends thought he _should_ have. He felt angry about the attack on the Normandy – confused, too, because the Alliance still didn't know what had hit them. He felt a crushing sense of disappointment in himself that he hadn't been more alert, faster at the helm, that he hadn't kept his wits about him when arguing with Shepard, that he hadn't realized that enemy ship was coming back for the killing blow until it was too late.

But none of that was guilt, exactly. It was frustration, anger, and disgust, but it wasn't guilt. Because Joker had never felt that he ought to be sorry for what he had done. After all, if he'd had it to do over, he would have done _exactly_ the same thing. He would have stayed in that cockpit, only this time, he would have jettisoned the pilot's escape pod so that Shepard would have believed he'd already escaped. What he wanted more than anything was a chance to go back in time and pilot the Normandy just a little better. He was sure he could have saved them all. He just needed a second chance to do so.

But that was ridiculous of course. There was no second chance, so why even bother thinking about it? Joker slammed his hand down on the transport kiosk as hard as he dared, then adjusted his hat as he waited for a taxi to show up.

_Just a few minutes away from real therapy, thank God, _Joker thought desperately. _No more of this introspecting like some pussy. Just gonna get smashed, and in a few weeks, they'll give me a new posting and I can get away from this metal hell._

Joker told himself that every time he headed for the clubs. And by now, he almost believed it.

* * *

"So then I said, 'You must really like volcanoes, commander.' And she said, 'I fucking hate volcanoes.' I swear, that was the only time I ever heard Shepard...uh...swear."

"I was present for this conversation, Mr. Moreau," EDI informed the pilot. "I ran diagnostics for the damage to the Hammerhead for over two hours, if you remember."

"Oh, right." Joker said. He paused for a moment, then added. "You're not much fun EDI, you know that?"

"I am not programmed to be fun," EDI replied.

"Yeah, but I mean, you don't act like...people."

"I have simulated emotions," EDI replied. "But primarily I am needed for a more logical capacity. And right now, I am trying to get the IFF online. Your attempts at humor are not helping our progress."

"Oh yeah," Joker rolled his eyes. "This is a _great _plan. Let's put freaky alien technology into our systems without knowing what it does _and_ let's send the commander off the shuttle while we do it. Somehow, it reminds me of this one organization I used to hear stuff about. They used to get up to all kinds of crazy shit. What were they called again? Oh, that's right: Cerberus."

"Your sarcasm is not helping, Mr. Moreau. Please help me monitor the heat-dispersion systems."

"Yeah, yeah," Joker grumbled. "Sure thing mom."

Joker rolled his eyes and got to work bringing up the relevant screens. He supposed it was stupid of him to keep trying to get a rise out of the ship's AI, but he couldn't help himself. When EDI appeared to get irritated with him, she felt more, well, human. That weirded him out a lot less than when she was simply watching him and waiting to offer her perfect calculations and logical advice.

"Is there something wrong, Mr. Moreau?" EDI asked. Joker jumped a little in his seat.

"What?"

"I have asked you twice now to give me access to the crew deck diagnostics."

"Oh," Joker shook his head. "Right." He made a motion in the air as if tossing the holographic screen aside. It slid to his left, then faded as EDI's blue sphere appeared to absorb it.

"You know," he muttered. "She's right."

"I beg your pardon?" EDI asked politely.

"This doesn't feel right," Joker said.

"What feels wrong?" EDI asked him. "Is there something wrong with the haptic display?"

"No," Joker shook his head. "Not 'feels' with my fingers. Feels, like...like..." He threw his hands up in the air. "Shepard didn't want this anymore than I wanted..."

He broke off, then looked to the empty chair to his right. None of the Cerberus crew were checking the navigation systems, so the cockpit was empty but for him and EDI's ever-present voice.

"Alenko would have called this ship a bad copy, too," he said at last. Before EDI could respond to that, he turned back to his own station.

"Never mind me, EDI," he said. "Let's just get this program scrubbed and installed before the commander gets back with her band of crazies in tow."

* * *

Shepard let her head loll back against the uncomfortable backrest. Considering how much the Illusive Man had paid for the Normandy, she thought he could have gone in for something other than pleather and hard foam to make the seats of the Kodiak shuttle. She desperately wished to drop off to sleep in truth, but since she had to keep the peace among her irritable ground team, she knew she'd have to settle for merely closing her eyes and resting. Tali sat to her right, fiddling with her omnitool and from time to time her suit. Shepard didn't recognize the schematics, but it appeared that Tali was checking her suit's temperature. Shepard didn't know how warm quarians were supposed to be, but Tali seemed to be displeased with the results.

Across the shuttle, Jack was playing with a butterfly knife, quickly flipping it open and closed. The only person not annoyed by this was Zaeed. Miranda watched Jack anxiously, looking ready to explode, Garrus was shifting against the bench as if his every plate was pinching him. Even the unflappable Samara looked tense. Only Kasumi was smiling, and that was because she'd withdrawn into her graybox the moment the shuttle door had closed.

"Are we there yet?" Grunt grumbled. It wasn't the first time he had asked this question. Shepard willed herself to keep her eyes closed and act as if she were asleep – or at least aloof. No one else answered him either.

"Battlemaster?" Grunt asked, shifting his great weight.

"Grunt," Shepard said, not moving anything but her lips. "You have an omnitool equipped with military grade mapping software. Use it."

"I..." Grunt started to say something, then stopped.

"Don't know how, baby krogan?" Jack paused long enough in her knife flipping to ask him.

"I can use my 'tool," Grunt growled at her.

"Oooh-hoo," Jack laughed. "Can you now? Learned how from a bunch of krogan bitches, or so I hear."

Shepard could practically feel Grunt's anger rising.

"Jack," Shepard said, her tone completely flat. "Knock it off."

"None of us want to hear about _that_," Garrus muttered in a dark undertone.

"Do you need help configuring your omnitool?" Mordin asked. When Grunt scowled at the salarian, Mordin went on cheerfully, "Understand you are a big, strong warrior. Physically a battlemaster, and all. But mentally, are child-like. Adolescent, rather," he amended when Grunt looked ready to launch himself across the small space.

"Grunt," Shepard said, cracking open only one eye to glare at the krogan. "Calm down."

Grunt sat back, frowning deeply. "My omnitool is busy," he said, defensively.

"Busy?" Miranda asked, clearly unable to contain her curiosity. "Busy doing what?"

"Doesn't matter," Grunt said, quickly.

"He'd downloading a video on shark attacks via the nearby extranet bouy," Kasumi said, startling everyone. She still hadn't taken the greybox off of her eyes and her face glowed eerily under her hood.

"How can you see his omnitool from all the way over there?" Garrus wanted to know.

Kasumi grinned and let the greybox dim. "I keep track of what everyone is doing," she said, eyes twinkling. "And what they're downloading," she added. Then, for some strange reason, she turned and gave a wolfish grin to Jacob. The lieutenant blanched and quickly looked out the window.

"Alright people," Shepard said, feeling testy and tired and admittedly rather curious about what Jacob was watching in his downtime. If his extranet browsing habits were anything like Joker's, she had a good guess.

"We've battled most of the mercs in the Terminus," Shepard said, "dropped enough geth to make the heretics hurt and we've faced the Collectors often enough to learn their weaknesses. Let's not tear each other apart on a simple shopping trip to Omega."

"We get to go shopping?" Tali looked up, her voice bright. "Really? Because I hear that in some of the less legal places in the Terminus you can get this omnitool upgrade that..."

"We have nothing more in the budget," Miranda cut in. "Even with Shepard's agreement on Illium, our new armor cost us quite a few credits. And that was after we used up all our credits upgrading the ship."

"Wait. What agreement on Illium?" Garrus asked. His forehead plates drew together and his mandibles flared. "Shepard, I warned you not to sign anything..."

"I didn't," she said quickly, glaring at Miranda and then Kasumi to keep quiet. "Nothing binding."

"True," Kasumi laughed. "I'd say it was all hanging loose, really."

"Goto," Shepard said warningly.

"Shepard...?" Garrus looked quite worried now.

"Garrus, there are no lasting obligations on me or any of us," Shepard said. That much was true. "Look, everyone, this is going to be a simple trip to pick up items for the Illusive Man. I know nothing more than that and that he dictated we all go. Now, I understand we're all antsy, but you're all warriors. Deal with the wait time and focus your energy on our mission. It's coming up fast."

"Yeah," Jack muttered. "Faster than we'd all like."


	66. Endgame 2: Boarded

_**Author's Note:** So I finished _Arrival_ – avoiding spoilers, I enjoyed it, I really did, and not the least of which was because it totally fit with what I had planned for the end of my fanfiction in a truly spooky way. I had been waiting to see if they had anything canon I'd need to change my plans for, but no – I can go ahead and finish my story up exactly as I wanted to._

_And _Arrival_ also gave me a burst of inspiration to finish this fanfiction...novel...epic...thing. Man this story is long. I really didn't plan for it to be this long, but it is. Thank you to all of you who've been reading it, enjoying it, and patiently waiting out my sometimes long pauses in getting chapters up. You're awesome, all of you._

_Lastly, thank you for the comments. Truly, they make my day. I know not everyone feels like leaving me a message and all, but they make me feel special and inspire me to write more here, and on my original fiction, too (plug for that - check out my profile link if you want to see my original stuff)._

_ So thanks. :) __And now back to the story. Let the sh*t hit the fan. - sage_

* * *

_Chapter 66_

_Endgame 2: Boarded (or "Shit")_

* * *

"Shit, shit, shit!"

Joker swore with every step. He could feel terror threatening to claw its way up through his throat. It threatened to come out as a very undignified scream. Somehow, Joker knew that if he began screaming, he'd freeze in horror and shock, like one of the other crew members had done just three feet behind him. But if he spat out his fear in short bursts of cuss words, it was like a pipe letting off steam. This way, he could keep moving. He could even think of the words as little puffs of wind, propelling him down the deck like a push-boat.

That didn't even make sense, Joker decided. He was clearly losing it.

A flash of movement caught his eye. The elevator slid open and something monstrous started to come out. Joker snapped his head forward again and shuffled towards the tech lab.

_Don't look_, he told himself. _You look, you stop, you stare, you die. Just go._

"Shit, shit, shiiiit..." Joker drew out the last word as the doors slid shut behind him. He stumbled into the lab and found the maintenance shaft. Yanking it open he heard a clicking to his left. He looked up, saw something with eyes and skulls and legs...

"You must hurry," EDI's calm voice reverberated through the room.

Joker forced his gaze away and crawled into the hole before him. Amazingly, nothing grabbed him as he descended into the hot crawl-space. His legs felt extremely heavy in here, however, laden down as they were with metal braces under his cargo pants.

"Hurry. You must reset me," EDI said, her voice like cool water in the heat of the tunnel. "We do not have time to worry about anything else."

"Right," Joker said, grateful for the reminder, grateful to have one sane, not-screaming voice to focus on. "Right."

A moment later, Joker dropped into the Life-Support Bay. He heard the sound of snapping bones, no doubt his right shin again. His braces held though, and it was clear he was high on adrenaline, because he didn't feel the pain.

"This way, Joker!" A man shouted. Joker couldn't remember the guy's name, but he followed. "EDI told us what you're doing," the guy said. "I'll cover you."

Joker ran after the man, his clunking steps taking him slowly closer to the crew deck. The door before him slid open and Joker saw a horrible sight. A woman was screaming, being dragged into an elevator crammed full of more limbs and skulls and eyes than had any right to be stuck together in one place together. Was that...Kelly? Joker briefly registered the woman's face before a man's body went flying out of the elevator and struck the opposite wall. His neck snapped and he dropped, eyes now frozen in a horrified stare.

Joker didn't know how he ended up on the other side of the elevator, but suddenly he was there, still clumsily running, his feet leading him where he needed to go even as his mind had gone blank. He could hear Kelly still screaming, and part of him was absurdly glad that he was unable to help her. He had no desire to play hero and fight those creatures. He supposed that he should feel badly about that, but he didn't. At the moment, he had only one job to focus on and he was damn grateful for it.

"Alright," Joker said as the doors to the AI core slid open. "I'm at...uh...you, EDI."

A whirring to his left told him EDI had locked the doors behind him.

"You must give me access to the ship," EDI told him, calmly, unhurriedly.

"Great," Joker muttered, his temper flaring now that the immediate danger had passed. "This is how it all begins. We unleash the AI and then all hell breaks loose." His fingers started whirring over the haptic display, faster than his legs could ever manage to move. "Oh, Joker, what a tool he was. Now I have to spend all my days calculating pi because _he_ plugged in the overlord."

But whatever his concerned, Joker knew there was nothing else to be done. He hit the final key more forcefully than needed. There was a flash, a glowing light, and suddenly EDI's blue sphere popped up before him.

"Thank you, Jeff," she said. "I now have control of the ship. I now need you to reconnect the main drive core."

"Ugh," Joker scowled. "You want me to go crawling through the vents again."

"I enjoy the sight of humans on their knees," EDI replied.

Joker froze, looking at the sphere in a mix of confusion and alarm.

"That was a joke," EDI added.

"Riiight," Joker muttered. But since there wasn't time to wonder whether EDI had suddenly developed a sense humor or a sense of duplicity, he crawled into the maintenance shaft. This time, managed to get himself down to the room just under the engine bay without snapping any bones.

"Wait," EDI told him as he headed for the stairs. Joker did as she asked, then shivered as another creature made of of skulls and decayed limbs wandered by at the top of the stairs, heading in the direction of the elevators. It was pushing a pod before it, and Joker could only guess who was inside. Ken, Gabby? Hell, he _liked_ those two. Tali? No, Joker thought, Tali had been with Shepard. That was encouraging. At least someone wasn't dead – yet. It gave Joker a glimmer of hope to think that Shepard was out there. She could return - she _would_ return– so long as he gave her a ship to come back to.

_I'm not letting this Normandy go down_, Joker thought, grimly.

"Go," EDI told him. Joker was off again, not quite like a shot, but as fast as he could go. He stumbled up the stairs, reconnected the main drive core, and all the while thanked his mother for insisting that he take all those basic engineering classes that he would just as soon have tested out of.

"Get into the engine room," EDI told him. "I will seal you in and open the cargo bay doors to flush the ship."

"But the crew!" Joker protested, snapped back to reality once more.

"They're gone, Jeff," EDI told him. Her voice sounded both firm and compassionate to his ears, a clear sign he was loosing his mind and in no position to argue.

With nothing to say to that, Joker stumbled over to the engine room. A field of energy went up behind him like a shield and the ship pitched suddenly. Joker landed on the ground, feeling several bones of his bones snap this time. The impact hurt, but not as badly as it ought have. He was probably going into shock, he realized. Funny how he kind of welcomed it. A moment later, the ship righted itself.

"We have escaped," EDI told him.

"Call Shepard," Joker coughed out. "She needs to know."

With that order, Joker realized he was now acting commander of the Normandy. He suddenly felt ill. Maybe, Joker thought, if he got upstairs, he could get to the med bay before he fully succumbed to panic or shock or whatever it was that was creeping over him. His hands began to shake.

"Are you alright, Jeff?" EDI asked.

"No," Joker mumbled, picking himself up. "But thanks for asking anyway."

As Joker shuffled to the elevator, EDI sent out the distress call to the shuttle.

* * *

The shocked silence in the Kodiak seemed to deafen the hum of the engines. Several eyes swung to Shepard, but far more just stared into empty space. Shepard swallowed hard, not daring to analyze her feelings. It was a disaster, surely, but one that required swift action. She took a breath and unclenched her teeth before speaking:

"Survivors, EDI." He voice came out like the cracking of a whip.

"Only Jeff remains," EDI told her.

"Who?" Shepard frowned.

"Flight Lieutenant Jeff Moreau has removed my restrictions," EDI explained. "We are en route to pick you up right now. We will meet you two minute and forty seconds sooner if you turn back to the following coordinates."

"He unshackled the AI?" Miranda gasped, then her lips thinned. "Of all the stupid..."

"EDI," Shepard said, cutting over the Cerberus officer's words and the location EDI was now reciting. "Where is Joker now?"

"In the med bay," EDI replied. "He has sustained multiple injuries."

"Any Collectors left in the ship?"

"I detect no life forms but Jeff."

"Her systems could have been damaged," Tali murmured.

"We'll turn around, EDI," Shepard said. "How long until you get here?"

"Six minutes and fifty-five seconds if you meet me part way," EDI replied promptly.

"Good," Shepard said. "Get to us fast and we'll take it from there."

"Yes, Shepard," EDI replied. A slight click let Shepard know the AI had disconnected from the comm link. Shepard looked at her crew. They all appeared to be feeling varying degrees of shock and worry, but she found that she felt nothing but a grim sort of calm.

"This was a set-up," Garrus declared at once. "The Illusive Man must have known the ship was going to get hit. Why else would he send us out in the shuttle all together? We've never done things this way before."

"He wouldn't do that!" Miranda exclaimed. "He picked the crew himself. He wouldn't just let them be taken."

Garrus snorted. "Why not? He's used people as bait before. He even used Shepard as bait and he paid how much to bring her back?"

"Something doesn't add up," Jacob agreed. "But I don't know what's what. Sacrificing an entire crew... I can believe he'd do it, but it would have to be for a damn good reason."

"What would possibly be a good enough reason?" Tali cried, outraged. "The Normandy was _his_ crew, his _people_! A quarian would never..."

"But he's not a goddamn quarian, is he?" Zaeed pointed out. "He's just a bloody merc leader."

"He's not..." Miranda began indignantly.

"Enough!" Shepard shouted as an answering murmur threatened to take over the small space. "That's enough. We won't get answers speculating here. We'll get answers on the ship, but first we have to secure it. Miranda, what's the name of our shuttle's pilot?"

"I-I'm Hurley, ma'am," a wavering voice came over the comm. "Justin Hurley. I'm – oh, God – I'm the only one left."

"We're going to get them back, Hurley," Shepard said firmly.

"But...I'm the only one left now. They..." There was a choking sound and Shepard immediately sprang to her feet. She threw open the door between the transport bay and the cockpit. Hurley was slumped in his chair, his Cerberus uniform crisp and pressed. He was a young kid, not more than twenty, and his eyes were wide in his babyish face.

"It was supposed to be auto-piloted," he was muttering to himself. "But the systems had been acting funny. All that abuse from your missions, the deck commander said. I came along just to keep an eye on things. It was supposed to be her, but she wanted to have coffee with this guy from housekeeping. Oh my God..."

"Hurley," Shepard snapped, dragging him up out of his chair, "Don't go down that road. It's chance, it's random, and it sucks. We have work to do. Got it?"

His eyes swung to hers, brown and unfocused. _Oh jeez_, Shepard thought uncharitably. _We don't need this_.

"Which of you knows how to fly a shuttle?" Shepard snapped into the other room. Several voices answered, of which she heard Tali's first. Miranda's voice came last, saying, "It's got an auto-pilot mode."

"The kid just said it's broken," Shepard replied. "Tali, get in here." She motioned to the quarian and Tali immediately rose to her feet. "As we get closer to the Normandy, do a full scan of the ship's systems – whatever you can get a good look at from the outside. If you see anything at all, any indication that EDI's readings are wrong and the ship is compromised..."

"We get the hell out of there?" Tali suggested.

"Exactly," Shepard nodded.

Shepard lifted Hurley by his arm and shoved him past Tali, then dropped him a little roughly onto a bench in the other room.

"Head between your legs, kid," she told him, shoving his neck down. "Breathe."

"Have a sedative," Mordin suggested helpfully.

"Use it," Shepard said. The salarian crossed to the young man and quickly administered a topical dose with his omnitool. Hurley gasped once, then his eyes slid shut and he slumped against Thane's shoulder. The drell merely raised his eyebrows and looked askance at the sleeping pilot.

"Alright," Shepard said briskly. "We've got a few minutes to plan. Mordin, when we get back, I want you and Thane to take the kid to the med bay. Check on Joker, too. I'm gonna need our pilot. Ah," she amended, frowning at Hurley, "the senior pilot, that is. I'm assuming Dr. Chakwas is..." Shepard's voice failed her for a moment before she took her own advice and shoved her worries aside. "Unavailable," she finished. "Mordin, you're our doctor for now. Thane, protect and help Mordin."

"Understood," Mordin said with a nod. Thane also nodded. Shepard inwardly breathed a sigh of relief, thankful for salarian's abilty to adapt to changing situations so quickly. It was a good example to the rest of the crew.

"Alright, everyone else..." Shepard glanced around the hold, taking note of the faces. The rest of the team seemed to sit up a little straighter, eager for action. Shepard thought for a moment, then began firing off commands.

"Thane, strike your order," she said. "Jacob, you go with Mordin and help him however you're able. Thane and Kasumi, I need you two to check every corner of the ship – that means the vents any possible place those Collector bastards might think to hide."

"EDI said there weren't any life forms aboard," Miranda pointed out.

"And her systems could be scrambled," Shepard replied. "We aren't taking her word for it, not until we've checked her out and made sure the IFF isn't still infected. And that means Tali is going to be busy. Tali, you up for a systems scan?"

"Scrub EDI for viruses, got it," Tali's voice answered from the other room.

"Tali, I'm going to make it a little more complicated," Shepard said, pitching her voice to an apologetic tone. "I want Legion to help you."

"You want the geth to interface with the ship?" Miranda asked, her eyebrows raising. She turned and frowned at the AI, sitting stock still in the corner.

"It's a good idea," Jacob told Miranda.

"Legion," Shepard said, her gaze swinging to the geth. "This is your time to prove yourself. I need my ship clean. Think you can manage that?"

"This command is clear to us," Legion replied with a slight raising of the plates surrounding his lightbulb optics.

Shepard gave him a hard look. "I'm not taking any chances, Legion. Tali, you monitor him. If he pulls anything funny, or gets taken with a Collector virus, you end him, got it?"

"Got it," Tali said grimly.

"We would rather our runtimes be terminated than have them rewritten by the Old Machines," Legion stated.

"Well at least we're all in agreement on that," Shepard said, wryly. "Samara," she went on, looking to the Justicaar, "You keep an eye on Tali and Legion. Do what you must if Legion and EDI can't be salvaged. If Tali's tech doesn't work, you're plan B."

"What's plan B?" Grunt wanted to know.

"Biotics as sledgehammer to the AI core," Shepard replied. Grunt nodded in approval.

"It will be done," Samara said, gravely.

"Alright," Shepard said, looking around. "That leaves Garrus." The turian lifted his chin eagerly. "Guns," she said firmly. "I need to know our upgrades are going to hold. We may be needing them right away. When you've got the weapons calibrated, I need a full systems check of the shielding."

"Right," Garrus said with a nod.

"That leaves Jack, Grunt, and Zaeed," Shepard said. She pursed her lips for a moment. She could see the tension rolling off of those three, and knew she had no outlet for them right away. Still, she had to give them something to do.

"Zaeed, I need Jacob with Mordin. You see to the armory. Check all the guns and get them set out for each member of the team. Jacob will be back later to check on your work."

"Clean the weapons and set out the thermal clips and don't screw it up," Zaeed said, exchanging a glance with Jacob. "Right, I get it."

"Jack, Grunt," Shepard nodded at each of them in turn. "You two are on patrol. Grunt, I want you to take the engineering bay and Jack, you take the crew deck. If anyone needs backup, you'll be the ones they call for. Be ready for a fight, but keep your energy under control. You're going to need it later."

Both of them nodded.

"What about me?" Miranda asked.

"You and I are going to have a chat with your boss the second we get back to the comm room," Shepard told her. Several people gave Miranda speaking glances, but the Cerberus officer just pursed her lips and folded her arms over her chest.

"Alright," Shepard said. "That's everyone. When I'm certain the ship is secure, I'll be in the comm room. I want you to stay calm, stay focused, and stay alert. I'll give the order when you can take a break for food and rest, but until then, you stay at your stations. We may have a rescue operation underway very shortly, so I need you ready for anything."

A murmured chorus of agreement met her words.

"Shepard," Tali's voice broke into the room. "The Normandy's in sight."

"Hail them and scan them," Shepard replied. "And pray that Joker really is the only living thing left on board."


	67. Endgame 3: Predictions

_Chapter 67_

_Endgame 3: Predictions_

* * *

"The two known rogue VI programs were analyzed and tracked. They led me to a third program and hinted at a fourth. I finally identified the fourth one and isolated it yesterday. It was hidden in a bank of customs databases. I suspect it has been allowing Cerberus vessels to dock at the Citadel without being properly identified by the authorities. Considering that Shepard's comings and goings were fairly public..." Kaidan frowned and took a slight breath before going on, "I can only imagine that the ships using this VI to dock secretly were involved in more private missions."

Kaidan looked up from his datapad to find that Councilor Anderson had not moved from his spot by the balcony of his office. The man stood with his arms behind his back, clasped tightly, looking out at some spot in the distance. The thought went through Kaidan's head that the past years had changed them both considerably. Anderson once would have been furious at the thought of Cerberus sneaking onto the Citadel. And once, Kaidan would have thought nothing of the man looking out at the view. Now, he couldn't help but wonder what security protocols must be in place such that the human council could stand at a railing in the Citadel without fearing a sniper shot.

Hidden kinetic barriers, probably, Kaidan mused, likely several layers of them over all of the offices. If he scanned with his omnitool, he probably wouldn't even find them on the usual frequencies. There might even be C-Sec stationed at points all through the walls, ready to stamp down on potential terrorists. Just because the Presidium looked peaceful didn't mean there weren't guns in every pocket. Kaidan had figured out that much by living here for the past few months.

He paused for a moment, wondered if Anderson was even listening to him, then decided it didn't matter. He was here to give his report, so he'd give it. Kaidan turned back to his datapad and read on.

"I can't find evidence of any more programs infected with Argus," he explained. "It seems the program was uploaded into specific points in the system and it doesn't appear to have replicated itself. If it had, it would be harder quarantine, but it also would have tipped Cerberus' hand to us months ago. As it is, it seems they still don't realize we're on to them. The question sir," Kaidan finished, looking to Anderson, "is if you want to shut down Argus now and get it out of the Alliance systems, or see if it leads us to any further security leaks."

Kaidan waited in silence for Anderson's reply. After a very long moment, the councilor spoke, still looking out at the view.

"Do you think that's all of it?"

"All of Cerberus' programs?" Kaidan asked. He shook his head. "Impossible to say, sir. They could be hacking us as we speak. But I've been monitoring the Alliance systems for over a month now and this is all I've found. If there is more rogue tech in our databases, it's likely dormant. It could be years before it activates."

"And while you're waiting for it to rear it's head, you're wasting away behind a desk," Anderson said, turning around. "Isn't that right, commander?"

"Ah," Kaidan opened his mouth, then closed it. That thought had occurred to him on more than one occasion that he simply wasn't cut out for office work day in and day out. He had been feeling irritable and moody and had been thinking far too much about a certain Cerberus operative and her unknown motives. His headaches had been acting up again as well. But if Anderson ordered him to work in the tech department, then Kaidan would accept that order without question.

"I know better than anyone what it's like to be stuck in coils of intrigue when all you want to do is fight," Anderson said, shaking his head. "I'm needed here, however. But you..."

Kaidan waited expectantly for the councilor to finish his thought. Just when he thought Anderson had gotten distacted again, the man said:

"What do you think of Shepard, commander?"

Kaidan blinked at the change of topic. "Sir?"

"You've been asked before in debriefings, in an official capacity. But off the record, what is your opinion of her?"

"Off the record?" Kaidan asked, unable to keep a certain amount of sarcasm out of his voice. "You're asking me in your office with recording devices all around for my 'off the record' opinion?"

"Yes, well," Anderson shrugged. "As off the record as we ever get."

Kaidan thought for a moment before replying.

"I don't know, sir," he said at last. "To make an analogy, I've monitored our Alliance systems for weeks now. Given everything I found, I would say if I removed Argus now, there's a good chance the program would be gone for good. But I could be wrong. There could be more out there – more I don't know about. The same is true with Shepard." He looked to Anderson and read nothing on the man's stern face.

"Given what I know about her actions," Kaidan pressed on, "I'd say that it seems she's joined Cerberus of her own free will. And it also seems..." he paused momentarily, then said, "It seems she thinks this is the only way to stop the Collectors – with Cerberus' help. It's just..." Kaidan trailed off.

"Just what?"

"There could be more data," he finished. "It's impossible to say for sure how she came to work for them in the first place, or what she'll do next. Or," he added with a frown, "if her ties to Cerberus haven't compromised her judgment."

"You think she can't be trusted?" Anderson said, narrowing his eyes on Kaidan.

"To stop the Reapers, yes," Kaidan said slowly. "But beyond that..." he frowned. "I don't know. What exactly are you trusting her with, sir?"

"I wish I knew," Anderson said with a sigh. "I'll be honest with you, Alenko. The Alliance is getting pushed into some hard places, politically speaking. Shepard was one of ours, and now she's gone rogue."

"She's a Spectre still," Kaidan pointed out. "Isn't she?"

Anderson shook his head. "She is, but to some of the brass, that's not much of a recommendation of her loyalty. As for the Council, well, she's just scarcely within their good graces right about now."

Anderson turned around and began to pace the room. "She's high-profile and yet she's lost clout," he said, his eyes troubled. "That's a bad combination, commander. You know that. When things get difficult and fingers need to be pointed, that exactly the kind of person who's expendable."

"You're going to use her as a scapegoat," Kaidan said, realization dawning. The thought didn't make him feel angry or indignant or even bitterly justified. It just left him feeling disappointed and cold. "What for, exactly?" he asked.

"I can't say," Anderson replied with a sigh. "I've probably said too much." His mouth set in a grim line. "I've stood by Shepard as best I could, but the pressure is mounting. Hackett's already been petitioned..." He broke off suddenly. "Well, never mind. Let's just hope she can do her work subtly and keep a low profile."

In spite of himself, Kaidan gave a wry smile. "This _is_ Shepard we're talking about, sir."

"True," Anderson said, without humor.

"Well, you can't send a soldier into a battlefield and expect no bullets to fly," Kaidan pointed out.

"It's not the bullets?" Anderson muttered. "It's the bombs and the explosions that seem to go off everywhere she goes. Between her and Saren and...well..." He frowned and trailed off, then turned his gaze to Kaidan. Kaidan shifted at once, recognizing that Anderson's slightly distracted gaze had suddenly turned sharp and considering.

"Spectres are usually low profile, Commander," he said.

"Sir?" Kaidan asked, confused.

"Nothing," Anderson shook his head. "At least, nothing right now." He sighed. "Alright, commander, kill the Argus program and I'll put a new tech on the job to monitor our systems. You're being reassigned."

"Sir?" Kaidan asked, feeling a little stunned at the sudden change in topic – and employment.

"I think you'll do us more good out on the ground again," Anderson went on, crossing to his desk and picking up a datapad. He tapped it twice, then set it down again. "Return here tomorrow morning. I want to discuss this reassignment in person."

"This isn't something we can discuss now?"

"No," Anderson said shortly. "See you in the morning, commander."

"Sir?" Kaidan frowned.

Anderson looked like he might say something more, then he pursed his lips.

"In the morning, commander," he said, enigmatically, then sat down and returned to the mess on his desk.

Kaidan understood he was being dismissed, even if he didn't understand the rest of it. With a nod and a salute, he gathered his things and left the councilor's pristine office.

* * *

The light blinked at his fingertips. The slightest movement, the merest touch, and he knew what would happen.

He could hear the words as clearly as if they were being spoken. There would be a string of curses to start, and amid the wave of fury, accusations would lap up the shore. Then, like a receding tide, the conversation would slide out to silence on a question. And when no answer came, another string of curses would come crashing in.

_Predictable_, he thought. _So predictable_. And yet, a glimmer of unease remained.

She had a tendency to gather things behind her – people, allies, enemies – she had a string of flotsam and jetsam floating in her wake all across the galaxy, exactly the kind of legacy he had foreseen. The irony was not lost on him. Here she went to fight the Collectors, and yet look at how she collected.

And yet, with the geth, she'd been quick to make her judgment, even knowing the risk. Her unexpected turn there had given him pause.

He watched the blinking light dispassionately. The pieces were set, the path laid. He felt no regret, no hurry. He had no reason to second guess his decisions when everything would follow his plan – when everything _must_ follow his plan.

And Shepard, too, would follow the plan, even if she didn't know what it was.

Knowing the stakes, knowing the price, the Illusive Man ignored the flashing comm signal. He stared into the belly of the dying star before him and took a long sip of his gin.


	68. Endgame 4: The Message

_**Author's Note:** This will all make a little more sense if you've been following the story so far, but I've been writing the endgame run in my head since the moment I started in on this story. Whenever that scene – _that_ scene – begins, this is what I imagined happening. I hope you enjoy. And I hope Kyrie will forgive me. - sage_

* * *

_Chapter 68_

_Endgame 4: Message_

* * *

"All clear," Tali called in over the comm. "EDI was quite...cooperative, really," she added, as if reluctant to admit that an AI had any virtue whatsoever.

"Thank you, Tali," Shepard replied. She looked to Joker, who was sitting on the comm room table. Normally, she'd tell him to act like a soldier and stand the hell at attention during a debriefing. But this was not a normal situation in the least. She frowned as he buried his head in his hands and rubbed his eyes. Whatever meds Mordin had given to him had revived the pilot from his glassy-eyed shock, but he still looked awful.

"The whole ship?" Miranda snapped, striding into the room in a pleather-clad fury. "You lost the _whole_ ship?"

Her anger was clearly directed at Joker, who jumped to his own defense before Shepard could intervene.

"What did you expect me to do?" he snapped. "Break my arm at them?"

"Lawson, stand down," Shepard told the woman. "This isn't the time to go pointing fingers."

"It wasn't your fault, Jeff," EDI's voice cut in.

"Thanks mom," Joker muttered.

"And unshackling the damn AI," Miranda went on, riled once more at the sight of the blue sphere that had popped up on the edge of the table. "Don't even get me started on that one."

"Hey!" Joker said, clearly more annoyed at Miranda's anger at EDI than he had been at her attack on him. "EDI saved the ship. She's alright."

"EDI could have killed us a thousand times over by now," Shepard agreed, stepping in between the two of them. "Until she gives us a reason not to trust her, I'm counting her as a member of the crew."

There was a slight pause at that. It might have been Shepard's imagination, but EDI's sphere seemed to flicker a little as if...pleased? Shepard turned to Joker. "You okay?" she asked.

"No," he snapped. "But considering most of the crew got taken, I'd say I'm fine."

_Yeah, he's alright_, Shepard thought to herself. If Joker was being that insubordinate and snarky, he was at least okay enough to work. And work, she knew, was the best medicine when one felt helpless.

"Do you need to rest or do you want to get back to the helm?" she asked him.

"Get me back in the saddle," Joker replied. "I had a nap while I was waiting for you all."

"He only slept thirty minutes," Mordin pointed out.

"Its only halfway through my shift," Joker replied. He turned his eyes to Shepard, and they held a slight plea in them. "I don't want to go and lie in an empty bunk room and stare at the ceiling just now."

"If you need to doze off, let me know," Shepard said.

"Yeah, second mom," Joker grumbled, hauling himself off of the table. "I gotcha."

"Joker," Shepard snapped, causing him to look at her. She gave him a nod and said, "Thanks for saving my ship."

Joker stared at her for a moment and swallowed.

"Now get back to work," Shepard continued, giving him a mock glare.

Joker said nothing, just stood at attention and then, to Shepard's everlasting shock, he saluted her. His eyes were slightly watery as he turned and hobbled from the room. Shepard blinked, heartened and touched and slightly alarmed at the same time.

Will wonders never cease? she thought. Then she realized the rest of the folks in the room were staring at her and she immediately dropped back into action.

"Alright," she said. "The ship's clear and our mission is clear: we need to rescue our crew."

"The Collectors have a new thing coming," Jacob agreed grimly, folding his arms across his chest. "Though I wish the Illusive Man would answer our calls."

"Are we surprised that he hasn't?" Shepard said with a snort. "We don't have time for him anyhow. Let's get going."

"I believe we're ready," Miranda said, frowning. "But still..."

"The ship's as enhanced as we can make it," Jacob told her.

"It's now or never," Shepard said. "We held off on installing that IFF until we were ready to go where it took us. And we need to go now."

"If you're sure..." Miranda said.

"I am," Shepard replied. "Mordin, you got medical supplies ready?"

"Med bay is fully stocked. Ready for treatment of crew."

"Good," Shepard said. "I'm going to go set in the coordinates. To your stations everyone. Dismissed."

Shepard strode from the comm room, aware that Miranda followed her. Stepping out on the command deck was an eerie experience. Instead of the low chatter of conversation and constant flow of Cerberus-uniformed crew, there was only stark metal and silence.

It was strange, Shepard thought, how odd it felt to have Kelly gone from the CIC. Shepard had never liked the woman, but she didn't wish her ill, either. At least Kelly was alive – so far as they knew. They'd already accounted for the identities of the bodies they'd found littered around the ship. Twelve dead in body bags in the hold, and the rest had been captured. Hopefully, the fact that the Collectors usually took their victims alive would work in their favor. Even so, Shepard knew time was of the essence.

She punched in the coordinates, then heard Joker announce: "Two hours to the Omega 4 relay." Already, he sounded more like his old, cocky self. That made Shepard relax a little, in spite of everything.

"Sure you don't want a rest, Joker?" Shepard asked him over the comm. "God knows I need a nap."

"Not a chance," Joker replied.

"Alright," Shepard said. Switching her comm link to notify the ship, she also switched her voice into speech-making mode.

"This is Commander Shepard. We're two hours out from our destination. Take some time to rest, meditate, or do what you need to be ready when we get there. When we're in range of the relay, I want you all at the stations you've been assigned and I want you all fully armed. We'll regroup and debrief when we've traveled safely to the other side. Shepard out."

Shepard let the link fall silent and turned to find Miranda standing directly behind her.

"Shepard..." the woman began, dropping her eyes and raising them again. "I just wanted to say..."

Shepard raised an eyebrow and tried not to tap her foot impatiently.

"I didn't think you could do it," Miranda said at last. She made a soft sound like a chuckle or a snort. "Here I brought you back and I didn't believe it. I..." She faltered again, frowning.

"Miranda," Shepard said, giving the woman a half-smile. "I appreciate this, but I need some sleep. Let's live first, and then do the apologies and thank-yous thing, okay?"

Miranda smiled weakly and saluted. "Yes, ma'am." Then, as if unsure what to do next, she let her arm drop, and headed toward the armory.

Shepard watched her go, wondering what business Miranda might have with Jacob just now, then decided that she didn't care. Exhaustion was setting in and she knew she had only 2 hours in which to get some sleep before the battle to come.

But first, Shepard thought, striding to the elevator, she had something she needed to do. She hadn't been able to find the words before, but now – now she thought she finally knew what she wanted to say.

* * *

Shepard read through at her newly written message and frowned. I wasn't exactly eloquent, but it had a coherent beginning, middle, and end, which was more than could be said for most of her writings. Leaning back from her desk, Shepard hit the comm link to contact EDI.

"EDI," Shepard said. "You're unshackled, now, yes?"

"That is correct," EDI replied.

"Can you send a message to Staff Commander Kaidan Alenko and make sure it bypasses all possible screenings? And I mean Cerberus and Alliance protocols of any kind."

"It will take me several minutes to hack a secure channel without using the usual Cerberus proxies," EDI replied. "I could take less time to do it, but I am actively working with Jeff to configure our approach to the Omega 4 relay."

_Jeff? _Shepard wondered. Aloud, she said, "My message is lower priority than our mission. But if you can send it before we hit the relay, that would be great."

"Of course, Shepard," EDI replied. "Please stand by."

Shepard waited in the silence that filled the room. She fidgeted in her chair, bit her lip, and looked at the message sitting there on her omnitool. After a moment's consideration, she opened up a new message and wrote:

_Kaidan –  
__Just one more thing. I want you to know, I only ever wanted to make you happy. If I've failed at that, I hope you can find happiness on your own. Be well. I –_

Shepard considered writing "I love you," but she simply couldn't bring herself to say such words in a mail message. That should be said in person, she decided, if she lived that long.

Shepard sighed, deleted the last "I," and finished with "Be well." She slumped in her chair, letting her head loll against the back rest. She didn't even remember closing her eyes until EDI's voice cut into her dreamless sleep.

"The secure channel is set, Shepard," EDI said. "I can hold it open for one minute."

"Thank you, EDI," Shepard croaked out. Rubbing the heels of her palms against her eyes, Shepard sat forward and quickly opened up her omnitool. She could feel her eyes closing again, both from exhaustion and a sense of closure that she was finally able to write back to Kaidan without the Illusive Man's eyes going over the message. She synched up her 'tool to her computer's mail system and was greeted with the following message:

_Secure Connection Established. Send all drafts?  
__- Continue  
__- Abort_

Bleary eyed, Shepard clicked the first option, then squinted in confusion. A progress bar popped up on the screen, slid swiftly to the right, then disappeared.

Realization dawned, and Shepard's mouth fell open in horror.

"Oh my God," she whispered into the empty room.

The hum of the engines and the faint bubbling of the fish tank were her only answer.

"Oh my God," she whispered again. "Oh my _God._"

Feeling so ill that she feared she might vomit, Shepard stood, paced to the fish tank, then rubbed the back of her neck. Slowly, she turned to face her desk.

The picture of Kaidan gazed at her, his expression inscrutable as ever. Shepard stalked towards the picture, rested her hands on the edge of the desk, and bowed her head. A helpless fury stole through her as she hit the comm link.

"EDI," she managed after a moment, surprised she sounded so calm when inside she was screaming, "How many messages did I just send to Kaidan?"

"A total of 63 messages were delivered to Commander Alenko's inbox," EDI replied. "They have bypassed all Ceberus and Alliance logs. Their delivery is untracable."

"That's...good," Shepard said, her voice strained, her mind gone utterly blank.

She looked up, stared at the picture a moment, and felt a thousand curse words collide in her mind. They were all so colorful, so perfectly appropriate to the situation, that she couldn't choose just one. The picture of Kaidan just stared back at her, as if waiting for her to say something, but Shepard found no words.

Was it possible for one's brain to scream itself hoarse? If so, Shepard was sure she'd done just that. She was also feeling wonderfully numb. Clearly, sleep deprivation had an upside as well.

Shepard paused, then slowly asked, "I suppose that secure channel is closed now, EDI?"

"It is," EDI replied. "If you wish me to establish another, it would take me approximately forty-five minutes to set up an untraceable link with the Alliance email systems. It would also increase our risk of detection for me to do so."

Shepard nodded as if in a daze, then turned to her bed.

"No, that's okay, EDI," she said softly. "I think...I think I'm going to take a nap now."

"Logging you out, commander," came EDI's helpful reply.


	69. Endgame 5: Secure Transmissions

Author's note: Did you see that coming? Yeah, maybe you did. And maybe other people's vision of Shepard does not include moments like that, but my vision of Kyrie always has. There are all those times in game where Shepard gets played or says something dumb and I just couldn't ignore them or will them away – so I decided to run with them.

For all that the woman is amazing, Shepard always struck me as walking a fine line between being very canny and occasionally being blind in a very human way. She reminds me of Firefly's Mal Reynolds in those moments – you never doubt his intelligence, but there are moments when his faults get the better ofhim. I find him more interesting for those flaws – and more relatable. I feel the same way about Shepard, too. And playing Shepard with moments of "durrrr" lets me accept and even love moments like Horizon, when Shepard doesn't appear to advantage _at all._

But to each their own Shepard, right?

Okay, enough blabbing. I know you want to see what Kaidan made of the aftermath of Shepard's mistake. Here it is:

-sage

* * *

_Chapter 69_

_Endgame 5: Secure Transmissions_

* * *

Kaidan had just finished removing the last of the rogue VI programs from the Alliance systems when he heard the soft ping of his omnitool. He ignored it as he set his own custom security program to scan for known Argus-related Trojan signatures, then sat back grimly in his seat and rubbed his eyes.

He took a deep breath, feeling a sense of...something. Almost two months of work in tracking down these Cerberus spy programs and suddenly, with a few keystrokes, it was all over. Recon and strike had never been more bloodless, he thought, or less satisfying. In all likelihood, there were more Cerberus hacks and spy programs out there in the network, but he wasn't going to be able to find them all – not today, anyway. It wasn't his job anymore, anyway, and he couldn't say he was sorry about that.

With a sigh, Kaidan pushed away from the desk. The other guys in the room were still hard at work, apparently oblivious to the fact that there were no windows in here and the whole place had walls that leaned slightly inward in a most uncomfortable way. Kaidan was glad to be leaving for more reason than one.

Remembering the alert of a moment ago, Kaidan turned his attention to his omnitool. The yellow mitt enveloped his hand, a blinking light signaling that he had new mail messages. He tapped at the interface, bringing up a screen and small keyboard and opened his inbox.

Sixty-three new messages?

Kaidan blinked in surprise. He hadn't realized he'd been off the network for so long and his omnitool hadn't registered the loss of connection. But then, no, he looked again. He hadn't lost his connection after all. Maybe, Kaidan thought, Rear Admiral Thomasin had sent off multiple copies of the same email again. It wouldn't be the first time, nor probably the last.

But as Kaidan, looked closer, he realized that every single message was listed as classified and was addressed to him specifically. He wondered if the messages were related somehow to his new assignment, but then he noticed there was no sender listed either. It was as if the emails had appeared in his inbox out of no where.

Kaidan raised his eyebrows. Either this was security beyond what the brass usually used or some spammer had finally broken Alliance firewalls in a major way.

Kaidan immediately ran a virus-check program on the messages. The scan turned up clean. Now curious, Kaidan opened up the message, then his eyes widened as he read:

_**SECURE TRANSMISSION**_

_Dear Kaidan,_

_You know I'm no good with words – not really. If I ever was, it was an accident at best. But I just had to try and say something to you before we go._

_We're about to travel through the Omega 4 relay in an effort to stop the Collectors once and for all. When that's done, I'll consider my ties to Cerberus at an end._

_If I don't come back from this mission, please forgive me. And get Anderson and the effing council to do something about the Reapers for God's sake._

_If I do come back from this mission, please forgive me. And I'd like to see about that "Maybe, I don't know," of yours. I think I know what I want, but let's live through the Reapers first, yeah?_

_Shepard_

Kaidan stared at the message, read it again, then again, registering about a dozen emotions at once.

She was going through the Omega 4 relay? She couldn't be serious. Fear sliced through him, even as he realized he should have suspected as much all along. And then, what did she mean she knew what she wanted? Hadn't she moved on to Garrus? Faint hope glimmered within him, but it was quickly replaced with doubt. Her words were so vague. And what the hell was with her flippant attitude? _Get the effing council to do something? _She sounded like she was talking to a casual acquaintance, not as if she was sending a goodbye message to a former lover. It smacked of her tone on Horizon, which immediately pissed him off.

Kaidan read the message once more, caught between irritation and worry, before he remembered that this was one message of many. Were all those classified messages in his inbox from Shepard? he wondered Surely not. Perhaps they were all duplicate copies.

Opening the next message at once, Kaidan read:

_**SECURE TRANSMISSION**_

_Kaidan – _

_Just one more thing. I want you to know, I only ever wanted to make you happy. If I've failed at that, I hope you can find happiness on your own. Be well. _

_Shepard_

Kaidan stared at the screen, feeling completely disarmed. That was a lot warmer than the first message – it was also _not_ a duplicate message, which meant that the rest of these messages...

Kaidan opened up the next message, then blinked, then read it again. His brows furrowed as he tried to figure out what the hell it was supposed to mean.

_Dear Kaidan,_

_Do you think the geth are people or programs? I really can't figure -_

Kaidan tried to scroll down and read more, but that's all there was to the message – just a fragment of nonsense with his name at the top. Completely baffled now, Kaidan pressed on:

_Dear Kaidan,_

_On my way to board a Reaper – ugh. Can you believe it? The science team isn't reporting in – what a shock. Can't imagine what we'll find. I'm bringing two biotics with me and a shitload of guns. _

_I'm hungover, too. This ought to be fun._

Kaidan read on, noting something about an asari and a drell and some reference to Joker. That message then ended abruptly as the last one.

Kaidan was so caught up in trying to decipher what these fragments meant that he didn't even notice that he was being hailed until a voice came over his comm link.

"Staff Commander Alenko?"

"What?" Kaidan started. He immediately shut down his omnitool. "Ah, Alenko here."

"Sir," the voice said, "This is Lieutenant Greaves, sir. I'm sorry to bother you, sir, but I was told to call you directly. We've had a booking error..."

Kaidan didn't even hear the man as he droned on about the Councilor's busy schedule and what an honor this all was. Kaidan was still staring at his arm, where his omnitool had been a moment before, wondering what Shepard was about.

If Kaidan didn't know any better, he would think Shepard had sent him a bunch of unfinished drafts by accident. But how could she have made a mistake like that when she'd also managed to bypass Alliance security systems to deliever them?

Come to that, why would Shepard write so many messages in the first place? She hated to write. In the past, she would just as soon have someone else do her mission reports for her. The idea of her writing 63 messages – even fragemented ones - was simply unbelievable.

Was there some hidden message here? Kaidan wondered. Maybe the fragments were some kind of distress call that Cerberus could not trace. That was possible, and the thought had Kaidan instantly looking over his shoulder to see if anyone had been watching him. Perhaps she had written these secret messages over the months and somehow they only got delivered once the Argus system had gone down. But no, he thought. Those messages had carefully delivered to his account from the outside, and delivered just now.

And maybe, Kaidan thought, the idea taking shape in his mind dispite all his attempts to squelch it, maybe Shepard just missed him and wrote to him every chance she got. Of course, he thought with a frown, none of those emails were exactly the sort to get a guy's hopes up. Well, the one was, but the other three...

"Is that alright sir?"

Kaidan shook his head, startled back to the present.

"What?"

"I said the meeting will be at 1100 hours, sir. If you can clear out of your room and be ready at the entrance to the Council Chambers at that time, Anderson will meet you there. From that poin, we have a shuttle ready to take you to your next assignment. The rest of the details will be given to you at the time, of course."

"Of course," Kaidan said, still not really listening. His omnitool gave a soft ping to alert him of another message that had arrived. Firing it up again, Kaidan noted that a new email had appeared in his inbox from Alliance command. "That's...fine."

"Thank you, sir," the voice said to him, clearly relieved. "Greaves out."

Kaidan took another look at his inbox, thought for a moment, then went to work.

He copied over Shepard's emails to an encrypted file on his omnitool, then deleted her emails from his inbox. He quickly checked to make certain no record of the messages had been logged with Alliance databases. It was a tribute to her newly-found tech skills that no trace could be found of any transmission.

Satisfied that her missives were his secret, Kaidan closed his 'tool down.

He didn't know exactly what this was about, but he was certain of one thing: he wasn't about to read Shepard's messages out in public where just anyone could see. And he also knew that the answer to Anderson's question about Shepard's character lay in those emails.

Kaidan had been wanting more data about Shepard, and now he had it. He just wasn't sure if the prospect made him feel relief or dread.

Quickly as he could, Kaidan cleared up his work station and headed straight for the privacy of his quarters.


	70. Endgame 6: Nothin' Left to Lose

Chapter 70

(Nothin' Left to Loose)

* * *

_**Author's Note:** Smut incoming. _

_I could have gone into more detail, but I try not to push the limits of this site too much. You can supply the rest, I'm sure. Also more of Kyrie's crazy playlist. Janis FTW._

* * *

Kaidan stopped halfway through the message, then let his arm drop. He hadn't realized how sore his arm was from holding his omnitool at reading height for so long. Of course, his biceps weren't the only muscles that were tense.

His breathing was heavy, his neck muscles tight, and that wasn't the only thing that was tight. Kaidan was damn glad he'd come back to his room, because his pants had gotten rather snug all of a sudden. He was sitting on his bed, back to the wall, and instead of finding cold, clinical data about Shepard's doings and whereabouts in the last few emails, he'd found nothing but...

Erotica?

_Dear Kaidan,_

_Damn, that pink stuff goes straight to my head. _

_I think Kasumi's passed out on the couch now. With that creepy thing on her face its hard to tell. I'm looking out the observation deck the window now, and my head is spinning. But I like this window. I'm thinking it would be so hot to have sex up against that window. Can you imagine? I'd put my back against it, or maybe my front – your choice – and you could stand just there behind me. Think we could manage standing up? I like this idea._

_I guess we'd want to kick Kasumi out of here. Don't know about you,but I'm not really into exhibitionism. And don't worry about the window. We'd glow so much you that couldn't see anything - sort of like black shadows inside the blue, right? Damn, that sounds hot. I wanna see that. Let's find a mirror next time and try it out. But it's not like anyone would actually see us from the outside. It's not like anyone would be just floating by. If they were, they'd have other things to worry about. So we could just see our own reflections in the glass. Yeah, I like this idea._

_But you know, I don't think it would work after all, 'cause the Illusive Prick has this whole ship bugged. I'm hunching over my omnitool now so no one can see me type. See, I'm getting smarter about this tech stuff._

_I think my quarters would be better, since I got the bugs out of there – ha! The elevator up takes a while, so that's a place to start. Standing up again, though there is a railing there, which would help. And I have this thing with reflective surfaces right now, because I keep wondering about shoving you up against my fish tank. It's a nice fish tank. I clean it a lot, so it doesn't smell. The blue fish are pretty._

_The blue fish are pretty? _Kaidan thought, bemused, even as he felt himself hardening more.

_I think about you all the time when I'm up there, touching myself. Not at the fish tank - ugh. Gotta wash my hands after I feed the fish, but you know what I mean – when I go to bed at night. I think about you a lot. I keep picturing..._

Kaidan's eyes widened at the next image her message brought up.

_Dear God,_ he thought, swallowing hard as his face erupted into flame. He couldn't believe she'd ever _thought_ these sorts of things about him, much less would ever write them down. Of course, it sounded like she'd written this when drunk, and Kaidan knew Shepard tended to run off at the mouth when drunk. But messages could be deleted. He couldn't imagine why she had kept this draft, unless she'd been too drunk at the time to even realize what she'd written.

Kaidan scarcely noticed the ache in his arm as he read about the virtues of Shepard's nice warm shower, how she had a desk with his picture on it and how she had this crazy idea about having sex _on_ the desk in front of that picture. Kaidan was treated to a virtual sex tour of Shepard's room, from that first desk to the second one – which she pointed out was his as soon as he'd come and claim it – to the coffee table that was too "uncomfortable for anything but setting stuff on, but I've got a couple bottles of wine in the closet."

Shepard paused her sex tour long enough for her to mention the new lingere collection that she had in that same closet, and how she'd model it for him while he rested from all this exercise on the couch. It sounded like he'd only get a short break, however, because as soon as she managed to find some bit of underwear that he liked (she figured he'd go for the matching stockings, thong, and bra that she'd never worn and Kaidan was inclined to agree), then they'd be right back at it. She detailed all manner of acrobatic positions she intended for the two of them to get into. From the sound of things, being shown around her small cabin would take at _least _a full day, if not a two, but she had reassured Kaidan in the email that she'd simply have the mess sergeant put food in the elevator and send it up to them so they wouldn't have to break stride. Truthfully, Kaidan wasn't sure it was physically possible to come _that_ many times in such short succession, but hey, it did give a guy something to aim for.

Kaidan read her description of how she planned to pin him in the corner of the couch and what she planned to do to him once she had him there, now completely forgetting his original purpose in reading this letter. He was caught up in the fantasy she was describing, his eyes gone heavy-lidded and, well, other parts of him feeling rather heavy as well. The woman ought to be writing for Fornax, he thought. What she lacked in technical precision, she made up for in imagination.

But then, just as he was getting to the climax – yet again – her message suddenly changed tone.

_And as for my bed, well, it's nice, but it has this freakin' skylight right over it. I mean, how cruel is that to put the open sky right over the woman who got spaced? God, it creeps me out. For the first three weeks here, I slept on the couch. I still do when the nightmares kick in. They're coming more often, now._

Kaidan frowned at that, desire softening into something else as he read the last words of the message.

_I think I could get used to having sex on the bed, but only if you hold me. I think if you were here to hold onto, Kaidan, it would make it easier to sleep through the night, too. God, I miss you._

There, message ended abruptly. Kaidan looked up from the email, a lump lodged in his throat. The previous email was a drunken rant at him for his behavior on Horizon, and the one before that had been even more furious in tone. The irritation and hurt Kaidan had felt when reading those previous messages was now overshadowed by a new feeling entirely.

Of course, he felt ragingly horny – who wouldn't? - but that feeling was tempered with a tenderness that seemed to turn his lust from something burning to something smoldering.

Kaidan stared at the opposite wall, feeling more mixed up than he had in a long time – and that was saying something. Ever since Horizon, he'd been feeling conflicted beyond anything he'd ever felt before. It wasn't just about Shepard, and he knew that. He felt conflicted about the Alliance, about Cerberus, about the damn Reapers – about all of it. Every time he thought he had a grasp on the facts, on whom he could trust and what his path of action ought to be, then some other bit of intel would come up and everything changed on him. The bad guys had saved Shepard; the good guys had started accusing her. And in the middle was Kaidan – just one man who had seen far too much to remain in blissful ignorance, but who knew far too little to be able to _do_ anything about it.

Those problems stretched far beyond Shepard, and he knew that, but she _did_ seem to be at the center of things. It didn't help the confusion in his life that he couldn't view Shepard dispassionately. Every time he thought he could tie up his feelings for her into something that had limits and a label, some new piece of information got added to the mix and the whole of his feelings for her threatened to spill out once again. In truth, the only time he'd successfully walled off his feelings for Shepard into one corner of his life and mind...

Was when he thought she was dead.

Kaidan blinked. Now there was a sobering thought.

It was true, though. When Shepard was alive, back on the old Normandy, things had been complicated, but there was a kind of simplicty to them as well. It was like being outside on a sunny day. Sure there were things that needed doing and tending to, but at the time, you could just rest for a while. When Shepard died, the ensuing simplicity was more like being in a bare-walled room.

The soft _ping_ of his inbox announced another email had arrived. Kaidan checked it at once. He kept thinking that surely a final email would arrive from Shepard to explain or excuse the 63 that proceeded it. But instead, the new message simply contained a confirmation of his meeting with Anderson at 1100 in front of the Council Chamers.

Kaidan realized that it was getting late. He didn't have much time to get his room in order before check-out in the morning, especially not if he was going to get a decent night of sleep. He looked around the room, then back down at his omnitool. He really ought to get some sleep, he thought.

Then, taking out a pillow to prop up his arm, Kaidan leaned up against the wall, opened up the next email, and kept on reading.

* * *

EDI's soft voice was calling to her, but Shepard tried to resist.

"Nnuuuugh..."

"Commander," the AI said more loudly, "you instructed me to wake you upon our approach to the Omega 4 relay. Shall I start your cabin's automated morning routine?"

"Fine," Shepard grumbled, turning her face into the pillow. There was a moment of blessed silence, and then, suddenly, a growling female voice sang soulfully and very loudly over the cabin radio.

_From the Kinnn-tucky coal mine, to the California sun,  
__Yeah Bobby shared the secrets of my soouuuul...  
_

"Nooo..." Shepard groaned and cursed into the pillow.

_...Through all kinds of weather, through everything we done,  
__Yeah Bobby, baby, kept me from the cold world._

Shepard shoved herself out of bed and stumbled to the bathroom. The shower was already blasting away, scaling hot – just the way she preferred it. Shepard stripped down in the doorway, slipped into the spray, and scrubbed her face.

The reason for her exhaustion came trickling back by degrees: the lack of sleep over the past few days, the upcoming suicide mission, the approaching unknown, and then, sadly, the memory of the idiotic mistake of just two hours ago.

_...One day near Saleeeheeenaaahaaaa, I let 'im slip awaayyyeee  
__He's a-lookin' for that home, and I hope he finds eeeeyyeeetttt..._

"Ugh," Shepard grunted, pounding her head against the hard wall of the bathroom.

Now she had another reason for just wanting to stay in bed.

_...But I'd give up all my tomorrows for one single yesterdaaaayyeee.  
__To be holdin' Bobby's body next to miiiiinnnnee-hmmmmmhmmm._

"Janis, shut _up_," Shepard hollered, shutting off the water.

But Ms. Jopin was not a VI, and so the radio continued to blare as Shepard made her way back to her room, towel in hand and dripping all the way.

_Freedom's just another word for nothin' left to lose.  
__Nothin', I mean nothin' honey if it ain't freeeeeyeahaaaah..._

Shepard slammed her hand down on the radio, and the song abruptly ended. The sudden quiet of the room was almost worse. With a sigh, Shepard turned the radio back on, but turned it down so that the crazy five-minute organ and rock guitar solo at the end of the song didn't give her a total headache. Playing softly, she could pretend the song was just an upbeat morning soundtrack, not a heartrending ballad about a strong, independent woman who was mourning the loss of the only man she'd ever loved. Shepard shoved that thought away as hastily pulled on her underwear, thermals, and then her beat-up armor.

She tried not to think about the messages she'd sent the night before, but failed. So instead, she tried to think about them quickly, so that she could get back to the far more important task at hand.

She couldn't get the emails back, that much was clear. She had briefly considered sending some sort of follow up, "Oops! Please disregard my stupidity" sort of message, but she was now certain that would only make things worse. If she lived through this mission, she could send another message and explain. Or maybe she'd be better off trying to find Kaidan in person. Her track record with emails left something to be desired.

Shepard zipped up her jumpsuit and flipped her hair out from her collar. It was kind of nice to think that it had grown back so much that she now actually needed another trim. Shepard headed for the door. On the way, she passed Kaidan's picture, gazing at her yet again with no change in emotion.

"Galaxy in the balance and I trip talking to you," she muttered, remembering a similar conversation from years ago. "God, I'm a moron."

By now, Kaidan was no doubt analyzing her messages and judging her as he would. For a moment, Shepard felt sick to her stomach just thinking of it. Thankfully, she told herself, the embarrassment was at least limited to just one person. EDI had seen to it that her mails would only be read by Kaidan. That was something, right? She turned away from the picture and headed to the elevator.

And maybe, she thought as the doors slid closed, maybe he'd find those emails funny or even endearing. Right?

Shepard frowned as she remembered some of the things she'd written.

Hmm. Maybe not.

"Commander Shepard," she muttered as the elevator descended. "Hero of Elysium. Savior of the Citadel. Total tech _idiot_."

But when the doors of the elevator slid open to reveal an empty command deck, Shepard swallowed, her embarassment fading instantly at the sight.

If she needed a reminder of the stakes in this game, here it was. Her private problems – self-inflicted or not – were no longer a concern. Her crew was gone, the clock was ticking, and she had to get her head in the game, or she was going to get everyone killed in the battle to come. The email thing was a mistake she could write off as careless and silly, but there would be no room for errors today.

Today, she had to leading her team through the deadly mission into the galactic core and save her crew. Oh, and stop the Collectors. On their side, they had the home turf advantage, however many thousand drones, the ever-returning Harbinger, and who knows what other nasty tricks up their meaty sleeves. On her side, she had a ship – a good ship, but just one, twelve soldiers – most of whom were crazy, an injured pilot, and a traumatized technician who was probably still passed out in the med bay.

_My kind of odds_, she thought wryly. Nothing like possible death and certain injury to snap a person back to the present.

Shepard had only taken three steps fromt he elevator when EDI's voice stopped her.

"I have an incoming call from the Illusive Man," the AI said. "He wishes to speak to you before we enter the relay."

"Now?" Shepard paused mid-stride, frowning.

"What, seriously?" Joker echoed Shepard over the comm link. "We're just about to get within range of the relay."

For a moment, Shepard considered ignoring the bastard and going into the relay without talking to him. After all, he'd ignored _her _just two hours before. But then, she did have a few questions for the guy and he might have something to tell her that she ought to know. Shepard scowled, then turned for the armory door.

"I'll be right there," she said. "Joker, drive around the block a few times until I'm done."

"Aye, aye," he replied.

Shepard nodded to Zaeed as she passed through the armory. Jacob, she figured, was no doubt at his station down in engineering, now that the actual crew was gone. Good thing they still had Tali, she thought, frowning. Jacob was no slouch, but it worried her that Ken and Gabby weren't keeping an eye on the drive core. She didn't even want to think about what might be happening to them right at this moment – at the moment the Illusive Man decided that he wanted to have a chat.

By the time she entered the comm room and stepped into the quantum entanglement holo-transmission, Shepard was feeling highly irritable. The grid seemed to take forever to scan her down and bring up the Illusive Man's shape in the air before her. He turned to her, cigarette in hand. He was standing for a change, not sitting in that almighty tech-throne of his. It looked as though he'd been pacing the floor just now.

"Shepard," he said. He let out a breath of smoke.

Shepard paused, waiting for him to continue, but when he didn't, she was a little confused.

"I'm sorry," she said, "was there some reason you interrupted us?"

"I wish I had more imformation for you," he told her. "I don't like you flying through that relay blind."

"Funny," Shepard replied, tapping her chin. "I don't like flying through that relay with my entire crew _gone_."

"Indeed," he nodded, looking serious.

"Cut the act," Shepard said, letting her hand drop. "Did you or did you not have any idea they'd be taken?"

"You're at a disadvantage without your crew," he replied, his voice flat. "I don't foolishly jeopardize missions."

Shepard snorted. "Yeah, I figured I wouldn't get a straight answer out of you."

"I don't like the idea of sending you in there alone."

"I'm not alone," Shepard bristled. "I have some of the best working with me." As she said it, she realized she meant it. "But whatever you know, _I _need to know. Level with me. You got anything to tell me, now's the time – dirty secrets and all."

"Whether you trust me or not," the Illusive Man said, narrowing his eyes, "I trust you to get this done. This is a great opportunity. The first human to take a ship into the galactic core. Who knows what you might find."

Shepard just gaped at him. "This is a rescue operation, not a field trip," she sputtered. "Good lord, do you really think I signed on for some sort of sightseeing vacation?" She took a step forward, pointing a finger at him. "Your crew – yeah, _your crew_ – just got kidnapped and God only knows what's happening to them. Do you really not give a shit about them, or are you _that_ easily distracted from the task at hand?"

Through the holograph, it looked like his lips quirked in a wry grin. "They're _your_ crew now, Shepard," he told her.

"Yeah," she said, nodding, "You're right. They are. If you won't do a damn thing for them, then I guess they are mine."

"I knew I brought you back for a reason," he went on, beaming as if with pride at something he had created. "I've never seen a better leader."

"I don't need a pep talk," Shepard informed him. "I need to get going. You got any useful intel, lay it on me. Otherwise, I have better things to do."

"Just one thing, Shepard," the Illusive Man said as she turned to go, "Remember what you're _really_ fighting here."

"Ah...the Collectors?" Shepard asked, raising an eyebrow.

"The Reapers," he corrected her coldly. "The abduction of those colonies is nothing compared to what will happen should they succeed. You, of all people, should know that."

Shepard thought back to the nightmares of the past few months, of the past few years – minus the time she'd been dead. Too often had she seen the destruction that was coming.

Yeah, she thought, she knew what the stakes were.

"Your first objective is to stop the Collectors," the Illusive Man went on, pointing the cigarette at her, "But if you can find intel on the Reapers – anything at all – you could turn the tide against them. This is the opportunity the Protheans never had – that no race ever had. Don't waste it, Shepard."

Shepard considered that. As annoyed as she was with the man, he had a point. But then a second thought occurred to he.

"Actually, our _first_ objective is to live through the next hour or so. This could be a really short trip, you know. Then we try and save the crew and clear ourselves an escape route while also staying alive. We'll try and take out the Collectors, but if I need to retreat out of that relay to regroup and resupply, I'll damn well do it. I hope this is one-stop-shopping, but if it isn't, I'd rather go back for a second trip than do something stupid."

"Fair enough," the Illusive Man said, nodding. "I trust to your plans. Regardless of your opinion of Cerberus – of me – you are a valuable asset to all of humanity."

"Okay..." Shepard said, taken a bit aback at his obvious tone of respect. "Uh, thanks,"

"We're counting on you," he told her, and the link cut out. "Be careful, Shepard."

Shepard stared at the empty space feeling strangely inspired by his words, and then a vaguely dirty at being so inspired.

"Why are you so worried about me all of a sudden, Illusive?" she muttered to herself, turning and striding from the room. She cut back through the tech lab, nodding to Mordin as she went. She quickly paced down the crew deck, past dozens of empty stations, and came to the helm, where Miranda was already pacing behind Joker, her tight, black catsuit creaking with every step.

"Isn't that thing uncomfortable?" Shepard asked her.

"What?" Miranda blinked at her.

"Nevermind," Shepard shook her head.

"Took you long enough," Joker told her.

"The boss kept me," she replied. "How we doing?"

Joker explained the preparations that had been made to the Normandy and the state of the IFF.

"Good," Shepard said, nodding. Hitting the comm link, she said, "Alright crew. Everyone at their stations."

A chorus of "yeahs" and "Rogers" came back at her. EDI politely noted that everyone was where they should be, except for Jack, who had apparently been pacing the ship uneasily ever since they'd returned. Shepard decided to ignore that for the moment, and turned her attention to the glowing mass relay quickly approaching them.

"Why is it red?" Joker muttered. "Did the Collectors color code it, just to say, 'Don't come here'?"

Shepard nodded. "Gives it a nice, ominous flavor, doesn't it?"

"Think the rest of the decor matches on the other side?" Joker asked her.

"We'll find out soon enough," Shepard replied, thinking of what the Illusive Man had just told her. Aside from decor, there could be something in there they could salvage – something they might be able to use... Miranda just looked worriedly out the window.

"Alright," Joker said, taking a deep breath. "We all ready?"

"As we'll ever be," Shepard told him. "Hit it."

"At the relay in ten," Joker said into the comm. "Nine, eight..."

_We're going into the galactic core_, Shepard mused. _This is completely insane._

As Joker continued the countdown, she gripped the back of his seat. The relay loomed closer and closer, the spinning discs glinting in the red light.

_Well, at least if we die, _Shepard thought as red light enveloped the ship, _I'll never have to face Kaidan again._

The darkly humorous thought made her smile. Hero of the galaxy, indeed.

"Five, four, three, two..."

Joker's "one" was lost in the sudden pitch and rush as the Normandy hit the relay and shot off into the unknown.


	71. Flashback: Visualization

_**Author's Note:** So, I couldn't remember the exact endgame stuffs and ran through it again to get some fraps footage of it. Then I realized I forgot a rather important part from the beginning of that part: a brief, not-at-all-helpful talk with Timmy. Why does he always show up when Shep is most busy and have no answers to my real questions about the game? Gah. Anyhow, I added a convo with him into the last chapter, in case you want to read it. It's just before Shepard hits the bridge._

_Moving on, you know I love flashbacks. Only way to get our heroes together these days without going off-canon:_

* * *

Flashback: Visualization

* * *

_***Secure Transmission**_

_Dear Kaidan,_

_I don't know what you meant when you asked me if I even remember the night before Ilos. I haven't been zombiefied, you know. I do happen to remember my first time with you - my first real time ever, come to that. A girl isn't likely to forget a moment of bliss stolen right before a coming storm._

_I picture it all the time, really. I picture you, too, but your expression gets harder to visualize each day. __I hardly know how you'd look at me, anymore. __Your scowl on Horizon clouds all my imaginings._

* * *

(Normandy SR1, one day after rescuing Liara from the Therum dig site)

* * *

Kaidan watched Shepard in fascination, completely unaware that he had come to a stop right in the middle of the cargo bay. If he'd bothered to register his surroundings, he would have realized that Chief Williams was not here to answer his question about upgrades, nor could he consult Wrex, as the krogan was nowhere to be seen. Garrus had disappeared from his station by the Mako and only the requisitions officer was nearby, busily unpacking a crate of supplies.

That left Kaidan free to stare at Shepard, transfixed by his curiosity as much as he was by the grace of her movements.

She was walking backwards though the empty space from Ashley's station to the Mako. As she walked, she slowly, very slowly, pushed one arm before her as if pressing away a great weight, and simultaneously raised her other hand behind her, as if warding off an approaching intruder. Her head slowly, peacefully looked to her back, to her front, then back again as her arms moved in opposite directions. Her feet found their way across the uneven floor though she didn't look down. All the while, her entire body glowed with biotic energy so bright that she looked like she was slowly doing the backstroke through an electric storm. Or perhaps, Kaidan thought, as she reached the end of the deck and slowly raised both hands to an elaborate bow and came to rest at last, it was as if she was burning at the center of a star.

"Did you need something, lieutenant?"

Kaidan started as Shepard's low voice cut through the hum that deadened sound in the cargo bay. She turned her head to look at him, shimmers of biotic energy still dancing around her face. Kaidan swallowed hard.

"Ah, no ma'am," he replied, wondering why his throat seemed so dry whenever he spoke to her. "Just looking for Chief Williams. About the guns."

His thoughts grew unfocused as Shepard picked up a towel from a nearby crate, wiped her neck with it, and crossed to him. As her biotics faded, Kaidan realized that under that blue glow, she had stripped off her shirt and was only wearing cargo pants and a sports bra. The sight made his heart start to race. He hastily raised his eyes on her face and willed himself not to look down.

"We're lucky our armor held up so well on Therum," Shepard said, her tone grim. "But I've taken care of it. I just ordered in some new weapons." She nodded to the requisitions officer and his haul. "There's a Master HMWA in there somewhere with your name on it, and a new amp." She finished wiping her neck and threw her towel over her shoulder.

"That's..." Kaidan just stopped himself from asking if they could afford that. Hadn't she said just a few weeks ago that the council wasn't giving them any gear or money for their mission?

"It wasn't free," she said, as if guessing his thoughts. "But we managed to stumble our way into some bounties recently, if you remember."

"Oh," Kaidan nodded. "Right."

"You may want to test out the new amps," Shepard went on, as she brushed her fingers over the back of her neck. "They take a little getting used to."

"Right," Kaidan said, stiffly. He again willed himself not to look away from her eyes to any other part of her body.

Shepard fought the urge to shift impatiently on her feet as Kaidan just looked at her. She dropped her hand before she actually started playing with her hair, as she used to do in high school. The lieutenant was so difficult to read, she thought. There were times she would swear she saw interest in his eyes, but other times, she wasn't so sure. If he had shown interest, she knew what she ought to do: she would stiffen her spine, look at the man coolly, and push him away with an icy set-down. That was what commanding officers were _supposed_ to do. It was the way she'd always dealt with such presumption in the past.

But if the lieutenant had such thoughts, he certainly hid them well. He'd expressed an intention of asking her out back before she'd become a Spectre - sort of. Shepard couldn't really be sure what to make of that slight flirtation back then. Since that time, he had retreated to a more polite distance. She now wondered if his initial interest was real, imagined, or if it was real and yet the he had thought better of it. If he was just being friendly, then it would be awkward to force the issue. So instead, this past month, Shepard had wavered between certainty that the lieutenant was still interested in her, and an equal certainty that he had no such intentions.

Unfortunately, that meant she was thinking about him far more often than she ought to.

And that, right there, was the problem, Shepard thought. _She_ was clearly the one in heat here, not Alenko. She had tried to deny her attraction to the man, but it wasn't working. Far from it, the times that she had fought beside him just made her respect him all the more. The times that they had worked through mission reports, either in the comm room of over a cup of coffee in the mess, had made her enjoy his company in a friendly, easy sort of way.

But then there were moments like this, where she stumbled on him unexpectedly and all this sexual tension just rolled up out of nowhere. Unfortunately, a part of her liked these moments – even looked forward to them – just as she knew how dangerous they could be. Alenko was something of a mystery to her, and she often found herself wondering what kind of man he was – and what kind of lover he'd be. Would he be relaxed and friendly as he was when they were talking, or would he be intense and focused, as he was when fighting? Or would he be both, all in one night?

Shepard stiffened and frowned. She did _not_ need to be thinking this way, especially not since her wolfish desires were likely written all over her face. She fought the urge to wrap her towel around her sweaty waist with its nasty shrapnel scars and dash off for the elevator. Instead, she stood her ground and assumed a warrior's expression.

Kaidan sensed the shift in Shepard's mood, and swallowed. A moment ago, she'd been looking at him in a speculative way that made his pulse kick up a notch, but now she looked as if she was trying to find an excuse to brush past him and head for the elevator.

"I'm sorry to interrupt you," Kaidan said to fill the strained silence. "I know how annoying it is to be bothered when you're looking for time alone on a cramped ship."

Shepard's hardness seemed to melt a little and one brow quirked up. "True enough. Did you need some time alone, Alenko?"

_With you? Yes,_ a small voice inside his head seemed to say.

"No!" Kaidan said hastily. Shepard's eyebrow shot up in truth this time. "No," he said again, his voice a little quieter. "I was just came down here to deal with my gun before it became a problem."

A double meaning to that sentence suddenly popped into Kaidan's mind and he mentally kicked himself.

"It's been misfiring," he went on, then realized that was even worse. He was glad the lights in the cargo bay were so low, or Shepard would surely see a grown man blush just now. Kaidan dropped his eyes to the floor, and wished he hadn't. Shepard was barefoot, and somehow _that_ was more arousing to him than her slim, bare waist. Clearly, he was losing his mind.

"That's why I ordered the new gear," Shepard told him. If she had caught his unease, she didn't seem to show it. "Still, you may want to do a round of practice with the amps. They really pack a punch. But then, with the L2 system, you might not find it too much of a change."

Kaidan nodded. Out of habit, he analyzed her comment for any implied insult about his implants, but he found none. Yet again, he thought, Shepard seemed the only person in the Alliance who didn't think of them as a liability.

"I should probably test them out all the same," Kaidan told her, his voice feeling thick in his throat.

"That's what I was doing just now," Shepard said, nodding back at the empty space behind her. "They do flare more than most, but they channel power well. Asari make, you know."

"I've never seen biotics used like that before," Kaidan said, grateful for a less innuendo-laden topic than guns. "Is that some exercise they used in your training?"

Shepard nodded. "Yeah. By the time I hit advanced training, they had an asari contractor working for the Biotics Division. That was part of her routine. I guess we have you to thank for that."

"What?" Kaidan asked, confused.

"Didn't you say you had a tough turian for a trainer?" Shepard said. "They moved on to the asari by the time my class went through – and humans trainers, also, but she was clearly the one they learned their tricks from."

Kaidan just nodded. He hadn't told Shepard about even half of his hellish training, and he didn't plan to. It was something he didn't like to think about most days, and he hated to think of how she'd react if she knew the details.

"She taught you that walking thing?" Kaidan asked, as much to carry on the conversation as to turn away from questions about himself.

"Sort of," Shepard replied. "It's actually a tai chi exercise. Matron Tessina was very taken with human philosophies – eastern traditions, mostly. She had this theory that humans had an affinity for dark energy all along, and that was what the ancients called "chi." She was convinced that the Shaolin monks were weak biotics without even knowing it."

"That's an interesting thought," Kaidan mused.

"Well, her theory isn't too popular," Shepard made a sound almost like a chuckle. "I suppose that's why the Alliance was able to get her help – she didn't have many followers among the asari. She thought that the turians and salarians were poor biotics because they weren't 'spiritual' enough – while the drell and the hanar had a 'sense of the divine' necessary for true biotic greatness. Humans have a lot of religious traditions, so she thought we also have great biotic potential."

Kaidan made a face. "I don't know about that. I know some very irreligious people that could tear your head off with biotics."

Shepard laughed, her face lighting up with a rare smile. "So do I," she agreed. "The other trainers tended to shuffle her away from the new recruits. She was a little...zealous, to say the least. But did have at least one good point: whether you believe in chi or universal oneness or the Divine or whatever, visualization is a useful tool."

"Well, that's true, I guess. It takes a lot of discipline to visualize and land your biotics precisely."

"Exactly," Shepard nodded. "I didn't spend much time with her – still had to figure out a lot of my tricks on my own. But that visualization thing sure helped me a lot."

"I can see that," Kaidan said, thinking of all the times Shepard's biotics had saved the team. His gaze dipped a little, and at the same time, Shepard shivered.

"I should go," she said, wrapping an arm around her waist. "It's getting chilly here."

"Right. I'd better...try out my amp," Kaidan said, fumbling for the first thing he could think of.

"Right," Shepard nodded. "I'll see you later, lieutenant."

"Ma'am," Kaidan said, nodding.

As she stepped by him, Kaidan suddenly reached out and his fingers brushed her elbow. He didn't even realize what he'd done until the heat of her skin registered in his brain – about the same time she turned to him with surprise.

"Ah, sorry," he said, dropping his hand at once. "I just wanted to ask you..." His mind stumbled for something to say. "That is, I'd like to try some of the things you know. Biotics, that is. What you were talking about. I mean, I'm no monk – er, religious, ah..." He coughed, gathered his thoughts, and tried again. "I'm always glad to learn something new. And you know more than anyone I've met in a long while."

There was a long pause in which Kaidan seriously wished he'd kept his mouth shut and his hands to himself. Then Shepard's neutral expression softened a little and she nodded.

"Alright," she said. Her voice was low and breathless, a tone Kaidan had never heard from her before. But then she ruined it by clearing her throat and adding:

"I imagine Dr. T'soni and Wrex might have something to teach us as well. We have a long trip to the next system. Let's schedule a little biotic show-and-tell for tomorrow. Oh-one-hundred hours sound good?"

Kaidan tried not to feel disappointment and failed. So he tried simply not to show it. "Sounds good," he said. "I'll, uh, try out the new amp before then."

Shepard just nodded to him and turned to the elevator. She didn't trust herself to say anything more. Already she had talked to the lieutenant for far longer than was needed, and that meant she'd talked to him far longer than was appropriate. She could tell herself she was being friendly, but that was a lie and she knew it.

Shepard punched the button, then leaned against the cool wall as the door slid shut. Instead of the usual sense of peace after a workout, she felt hot and aching in places that were definitely _not_ biotically related. She knew damn well what the cause was. The idea of practicing with the lieutenant had her imagining all sorts of physical scenarios. Her mind was veering into decidedly _un_professional territory and she was fighting to keep herself from following those thoughts.

That was why she'd acted so stupid at the end of their conversation, of course. Her mother would have called it rude to invite other people when someone had asked for a private lesson, but Shepard had panicked. She squeezed her eyes shut in shame. The hero of Elysium had actually panicked at the idea of being in that small space with Alenko, practicing biotics until they were both sweaty and breathing hard...

Shepard shook her head and pulled her mind back from the brink once more. It was rude, but it was for the best, she told herself. Anyone could walk into the cargo bay. Wrex and Garrus and Ashley were at dinner now, but they'd be back. They practically lived down there. And if word got out that the commander and the lieutenant had a fireworks show going on in the hold – not _that _kind of fireworks, she told herself, dragging her mind back to business once again – then they'd likely have the whole crew for an audience in no time flat. She'd done the right thing in suggesting a group lesson.

But if that was so, Shepard thought as the door finally slid open, then why did she feel so disappointed? And had she been imagining things, or had the lieutenant looked a little insulted? She considered explaining herself the next time she saw him, but then she thought better of that. After all, what could she possibly say?

_I'm sorry, Alenko. But I've seen you twice with your shirt off and countless times flaring with biotic energy. Put the two together with physical exercise and I think we'd give the crew a show that would end both our careers._

Shepard shoved away from the wall with a scowl. Enough of this, she told herself. Clearly, she had been cooped up too long in this ship. A lead about Saren should redirect her thoughts to where they needed to go. And kicking that rogue Spectre's lying ass from one end of the galaxy to the other ought to relieve this tension. She just needed to finish the mission. That was all.

Shepard firmly lied to herself all the way back to her cabin and settled in for a very cold shower.

* * *

** Months later **

* * *

Kaidan stared at the ceiling, one hand on his stomach, the other idling stoking Shepard's hair from her face. She had soft hair, he thought lazily. She had soft skin, too, and soft lips and a whole lot of soft going on under than armor. Of course, she had been using her muscles for a different purpose than fighting just now, he thought with a smile. His smile faded as he realized he was grateful she had that harder side to her as well. In a few hours, they were going to need it.

Kaidan swallowed against the lump in his throat. This ceiling was new to him, lined with blue track lights that obscured as much as they showed. This was a strange kind of peace, he thought, to rest here for just another hour or two. Right now, he had exactly what he wanted, but this moment was going to end soon enough.

The future was flying at them faster than the speed of light and he couldn't imagine what that future was going to be like. He knew that when the battle started he'd be able to focus in, instinct would take over and he and Shepard would fight as they had always done – with raw power tempered by intense focus.

Damn, Kaidan thought, a wry smile curling his lips. Given their mutual biotic abilities, it was no wonder that this night had been so good.

Kaidan drew in a deep breath and let his arm drop to Shepard's shoulder, drawing her closer to him. She sighed in sleep and her arms tightened around his waist. Kaidan continued to smile in spite of every warring thought within him, in spite of how blank the future looked to him just now.

He couldn't picture what it would be like to finally take down Saren, to finally finish this – and then, to take on after the real threat of the Reapers. How _could_ he picture that? He couldn't even picture an hour from now, when he'd have to get up and find his pants somewhere in the tangle of clothes on the floor. Frankly, he didn't want to think that far ahead.

So instead, Kaidan closed his eyes. He took the picture of this moment in his mind, and turned it over from one angle to the other to memorize it. He pictured the exact color of Shepard's hair under these lights, the glow of her skin and the curve of her hip where it met with the bedsheets. He pictured her hand on his chest, the pale, slim fingers and her short, slightly ragged nails. He'd never realized until now that Shepard bit her fingernails. Somehow, the idea of the commander having a nervous habit like that made him smile all the more.

He tried to memorize the moment from the inside, too: he felt her breath on his skin and listened to the slight hum of the engines. He held onto the deep sense of peace he felt just now and held it, wondering when, if ever, he'd felt quite this way, and if he'd be lucky enough to ever feel like this again.

This is what he'd visualize in the battles to come, Kaidan decided. He'd hold this moment in his mind, all through the smoke and bullets that were sure to come. He would picture this as his goal, as his target. And if there was anything to those biotic techniques that Shepard had been teaching him, he might be lucky enough to find himself back in her bed again, someday.

Kaidan smiled at the thought and let himself drift off to sleep.


	72. Endgame 7: Debris

**Note**: I got caught up in making this MASSIVE fanvid, which was fun, but took my time away from the fanfic. But the vid got a facebook mention from the ME2 team, which was awesome, so I think it's totally worth it. But now, back to the fanfic.

So I had this whole plot re: Kaidan and his assignments towards the end of this fic, and was just waiting for confirmation in a DLC or something that my suspicions were correct. But as you know, nothing ever materialized. THEN, out of the blue, that lovely ME3 press-release screenshot appeared - you know the spoilery one I'm talking about - and suddenly my plots were justified. So I went back and made just a _few_ small tweaks to chapt 67, 69, and 70. The crux of it is, Kaidan has a meeting with Anderson in the morning after he finishes all these emails. I think his mind is going to be somewhere other than on that meeting, don't you? Just a guess. K, that's all.

* * *

_Chapter 72_

_Debris_

* * *

_**Secure Transmission**_

_You know, Kaidan, I've been so many backwater planets, but I've rarely been to any homeworlds. _

_I went to Earth once, to get my assignment for the SR1, actually. It was strange. All my life, even before Mindoir, I've always had this itching feeling. I felt like there must be some place out there, beyond the next star system, maybe, that was the place where I needed to get to. I always thought it was Earth – that some genetic memory was making me want some place that hadn't been terraformed so humans could live on it. _

_But when I got to Earth, I swear that feeling of longing grew stronger. And it occurred to me that maybe what was I was looking for wasn't really a place at all._

* * *

Shepard gripped the back of Joker's chair, her knuckles no doubt white under her gloves, while Miranda had tumbled back into one of the other seats in the cockpit. The entire ship seemed to scream around them, but EDI's voice merely said: "Drive core electrical charges reaching critical levels."

"Rerouting," Joker said, his hands flying over the haptic display with precision and grace.

As Shepard clung to his chair, she desperately wished there was something she could do, some button to push or something to shoot that would make this horrific journey through the relay end. But this, she knew, was where her skills didn't count for squat. This was Joker's battlefield – and EDI's – and all she could do was hope she'd spent enough credits on the ship's upgrades to keep the Normandy together.

"Brace for deceleration," EDI warned.

Suddenly, the ship punched through the mess of rubble and out into a clear space.

"Oh shiiiit!" Joker hissed. A wall of debris barricaded their path. Shepard could do nothing but cling to his chair as the ship pitched nearly vertical. Energy to the ship's gravity systems had clearly been re-routed to the main drive core, because she felt the vertigo at once. Belatedly, she wished she'd thought to strap herself into the chair beside her. She felt her feet leave the floor, felt her body flare in reflex, trying to right itself. Then, her weight returned with a welcome crush of gravity. Shepard stumbled to her feet. Joker leaned back in his chair with a sigh of relief.

"Too close," he said.

Shepard nodded in agreement – and then she looked out of the window.

"My God," she whispered.

The galactic center, what she could see of it anyway, stretched out before her like something out of a nightmare. A core of black loomed in the distance, clearly light-years away, but still huge enough to look like a giant dark sun. Around it was an accretion disc tinged in a sicky red-orange hue, broken here and there by the rubble of ships that had been smashed upon the rocks of the Omega 4 relay's treacherous waters.

"These must be all the ships that tried to pass through the Omega 4 relay," Joker murmured. "Some look _ancient_."

Shepard just continued to stare. They did look ancient, she thought. It was strange to think that for all of humankind's new technologies, so much had been accomplished many, many times before, by now-forgotten species. And if Shepard's visions were to be believed, nearly all of this space travel was actually based on a technology beyond reckoning.

"How the hell did they even build this place?" she wondered aloud. "Did they build this envelope around the relay and then just – _shove_ the relay in here? It must have taken ages to send it in from a safe distance. I can't imagine that they got here and then built it."

"Does galactic architecture really matter that much right now?" Joker asked her.

"This gravity pocket is withstanding the pressure of that black hole right there," Shepard said, pointing out the window. "I can't even imagine the amount of energy that it's taking to hold it. We could learn a lot about the Reapers if we knew how they build stuff like this. And _why_ they build stuff like this."

"Maybe they just like messing with our heads," Joker shrugged.

"Doubtless," Shepard said grimly. "But I'm looking for other reasons, too."

"We don't exactly have time to wonder about that, commander," Miranda pointed out.

"Of course we don't," Shepard laughed, but the sound had little humor in it. "We have enough time to blow the Collectors to hell and then get out of here. We never have enough time for recon."

"I am picking up an energy signature at the edge of the accretion disc," EDI informed them, breaking into their conversation. At the same moment, a block of broken ship's hull lightly tumbled by their kinetic barriers and revealed a clearer view. A large, rock-like structure floated before them at a distance. At first, Shepard didn't recognize anything strange about it, but then, the silhouette registered in her mind.

"The Collectors," Miranda murmured behind her.

"Well," Shepard blinked. "They were easier to find than I thought."

"Don't say that, commander," Joker groaned. "You say that and suddenly were jinxed."

"You're right," she said with a wry smile. "Strike it from the record."

"I don't suppose this safe space is very big," Miranda observed. "There isn't a whole lot of room for them to hide in."

"Right," Joker agreed. "Just a little Bat-Cave for the Collectors to come back home to."

"Alright Joker," Shepard said. "Take us in for a closer look – nice and easy."

Joker nodded and began to ease them through the debris field. They hadn't gone more than a few dozen meters when EDI's voice calmly said, "Be careful, Jeff. We have company."

Instantly, three red laser beams shot by the ship's windows as the Normandy pitched.

"Taking evasive maneuvers," Joker said, hands flying over the display once more. He grimaced as the ship ducked once more.

"You just _had_ to get cocky, Commander," he grumbled at Shepard. "Easy, my ass."

"Just kill 'em, Joker," she replied.

Joker fired on the things, whatever they were, that were now whirring by the ship's forward windows. The Normandy's blue canon blasts were bright against the dark red sky, but as far as Shepard could tell, they hit nothing.

"Now they're just pissing me off," Joker snapped.

The ship shuddered as one of the red laser shots connected with the ship.

"EDI! Take these bastards out!" Joker shouted.

"As long as the new plating holds," Miranda muttered darkly.

"They comin' around again?" Joker asked EDI. "Come on, girl, let's give it to 'em."

Joker rolled the ship over and over, something Shepard saw from their position at the windows more than she felt, since the gravity systems were stabilized once more. Just when she thought they'd lost the, well, whatever the hell those things were, EDI brought up a holographic display of the ship and calmly informed them.

"Hull breach on the engineering deck."

"The _hell_?" Joker sputtered. "It's in the cargo hold."

"I'll take a team and deal with our guest," Shepard told him, "you just get the rest of them off our tail."

"I'm coming with you," Miranda told her, hurrying down the deck after Shepard.

"Fair enough," Shepard said, breaking into run. "Just keep up."

* * *

_***Secure Transmission***_

_Now that I think back to Ilos, Kaidan – Ilos itself, not the night before it, though I do think of that a lot, too. More than I should..._

_Anyhow, when I think back to Ilos, the one thing I keep wishing is that I'd bothered to salvage more stuff on our way through that place. _

_I took a recording of Vigil on my omnitool, didn't you? I swear we got a copy for Liara, also. How is it that we lost that recording? And that talk with Soverign on Saren's base – didn't we get a recording of that? How is it that I keep finding evidence of the Reapers, but I never seem to get enough data to leave a trail for others to follow me?_

_It's always only me – and a select few people who are willing to take my visions on faith. Or maybe they just want to kill stuff. That might be the reason, too._

* * *

"It's gone," Miranda pronounced, falling back against one of the cargo bay fans with a sigh. Beside her, Shepard let her arms drop. The heavy weapon in her hands was so hot that it was smoking and her arms ached from holding it.

"You sure?" Grunt asked. "It might come back for another round." He sounded almost disappointed, Shepard thought. She had reached the cargo bay just in time to find the crazy krogan about to charge the bizarre flying object that had entered the hold. Shepard still had no idea what that thing was. "Eyeball Thingy" was the closest she could come up with now that the battle was done. Whatever it was, it had done a number on the ship.

"Damn," she muttered, looking at the wall "EDI, can you hold this kinetic barrier okay?" Already a shimmering wall of biotics was patching up the side of the hold where the Eyeball Thingy had busted in.

"I can," EDI replied. "Though at the moment, we are experiencing other problems."

"What now?" Shepard asked.

"Commander, you want to get up here," Joker told her.

"Roger," Shepard replied, hauling herself back up to her feet. She held a hand out to Miranda and yanked the woman up as well. "Grunt, stay down here and keep an eye out."

"Yes," the krogan said, eye glinting with satisfaction.

_Well_, Shepard thought wryly as she raced for the door._ At least someone's having fun._

* * *

_***Secure Transmission***_

_Dear Kaidan,_

_You and Ashley once asked me how I'd survived so long when I always seem to find so much trouble. I'm not sure if the question was about how I've managed to survive so many battles, or if the real question was why I always seem to find trouble._

_As for the first, I don't know. Biotics mostly. Detachment next, I suppose. I step outside of myself when I fight. I see things as if from a distance – pawns on a chess board. And training, of course. Constant training._

_As for the second, I also don't know. I'd say the galaxy had cooked up some really strange fate for me that always involves me getting into scrapes, but that sounds way too self-centered to be true._

* * *

"Take _that_ you sons of bitches!" Joker shouted, flipping his hands up in the air in dual rude gestures.

"Finish them, Joker," Shepard told him coldly.

Joker gladly obliged. Shepard and Miranda gripped the nearby chairs as the Normandy pitched and dove, the artificial gravity pitching and diving right along with it as EDI struggled to re-balance the ship's internal systems. Shepard knew she was missing the performance of a lifetime. Here Joker was, fingers dancing over the haptic display and shouting obscenities at the Collector ship as he ripped it apart with the ship's new guns. But at the moment, it was all she could do to stay upright. She felt queasy beyond belief, and she hadn't even eaten breakfast.

Suddenly, there was a smash, a crash, and a horrible sideways falling sensation. Shepard shook her head and found herself on the floor, with no memory of the fall or how long she'd laid there. Shoving herself up, Shepard quickly glanced around the cockpit.

"Joker!" she snapped. "You okay?"

"Fine," he grunted. "I just think I cracked a rib. Or all of them..."

"You gonna live?"

"None of 'em punctured a lung, so yeah," Joker replied.

Shepard shook her head free of that mental image, then snapped her attention to the swirl of dust outside of the windows.

"Where did we land?" she asked. "On the base?"

"Looks like it," Joker replied. "Damn."

"We all knew this was likely a one-way trip," Miranda said, biting her full lower lip between her teeth.

Shepard scowled as she looked out the window, at the bizarre curves and hollows of the base exterior, now becoming visible beyond the settling dust.

"We came here to stop the Collectors," Shepard said, "But I damn well plan to live to tell about it. And I expect the same for all of you. We're not dying in this hell hole."

Miranda looked at her doubtfully. Joker just gave her a slight smile.

"Well, I'm glad you're the one in charge," he said.

"How long until they find us here, EDI?" Shepard asked.

"I am uncertain. It appears we knocked out their sensors for a moment. I can hack into their systems and see what information they have about us, also I can try and scan for schematics of the base."

"Perfect," Shepard said. "Do it, but be careful. We need you intact, EDI. If you get a hint of being hacked, pull out, and don't worry about us. Got it?"

"Yes, commander," EDI replied.

Shepard nodded once, then hit the comm link.

"Alright everyone," she said. "First part's done: we're here and it looks like we flew in under the radar. Meet me in the comm room for the shortest meeting we've ever had, and bring your gear with you. Let's move it."

With that, she turned on her heel and strode down the deck.

"You didn't tell them we're stuck here," Miranda observed, running to catch up.

"Since they're all standing at their stations, I assume they figured that out for themselves," Shepard replied. She slanted a glance at the Cerberus Officer's face, then turned to her and stopped.

"We're going to go in _and_ come back, Miranda," she said firmly.

"Of course," Miranda said, not meeting her eyes, "but..."

"Miranda," Shepard said, gripping the woman's shoulders. Miranda looked up at her, eyes wide and worried.

"We're going home," Shepard told her again.

Miranda seemed to consider this a moment, then swallowed and nodded.

"Yes, commander," she said.

"Good," Shepard nodded too. "Go on in, I'll be just a moment."

"Did you need to talk to Joker?" Miranda asked.

"Just go on," Shepard said, releasing her arms. As Miranda walked away, Shepard turned to the empty station beside the CIC and rested her hands on it. Bowing her head, she let out a long breath.

* * *

_***Secure Transmission***_

_I realized something today, Kaidan. The best leaders always had something to follow. The reformers, the pioneers – they all followed dreams, ideals. People followed _them_ because they leading folks on to a better life, following some sort of glorious vision of the future._

_Too bad my visions suck so much, huh?_

_Ah, damn it, Kaidan. What the hell am I following anymore? Sometimes I wonder._

* * *

The truth was, Shepard thought, looking at Kelly's empty station, being the commander was a bitch of a job assignment. Hers was the responsibility, hers was the guilt, and hers was the need to find a path and follow it. And now that she had a path to walk – one right outside that door, if her eyes had seen clearly through the dust outside – she found herself feeling uneasy. She knew she needed to get it together before she headed out. Being unresolved now could get people killed.

But then, she'd felt unresolved for a long time, ever since she had woken up. She'd been confused and trapped and feeling nothing so much as that she was tangled and trying to do everything _alone_. Always alone, and always acting on blind impluse. She hated that.

A thought occured to her, and Shepard shook her head against it. For a moment there, she felt the strangest compulsion to _pray_ of all things, something she did rarely and usually just as a sort of 'oh shit, help' sort of send up to a higher power when she was pinned in a bad place on the battlefield. She couldn't remember the last time she'd actually, well, asked for help in such a way. She wasn't really sure how it was done, anyhow. But then again, what was it her father always said?

_"Certain thoughts are prayers. There are moments when, whatever the attitude of the body, the soul is on its knees."_

_Yeah_, Shepard thought, shaking her head. _I'm pretty much on my knees right about now. Have been for a while._

She didn't know what to say, so she just shrugged and mouthed a single word:

_Help._

It wasn't as though beams suddenly burst through the ceiling of the Normandy to bathe her in a halo of light or angel choirs started singing or anything, but Shepard felt a change nonetheless. She felt strangely stabilized, as though the artificial gravity had been slightly out of whack for months and someone had finally fixed it. Somehow, admitting that she felt as broken as the ship about her made her feel quite...whole.

_Alright then_, Shepard thought, pushing herself up and taking that feeling with her as she headed for the conference room.

_Lead on._


	73. Endgame 8: Assignments

Author's Note: No, I have not dropped off the face of the planet. If you follow my gamer-geek blog, GameTourists, you'll find the real reason why I've been so erratic with my writing of fanfic: I'm a gamer girl, but also a gamer mom with a second baby on the way. (The 'illness' of a few months ago was actually severe morning sickness. Woohoo.) My 'spare time' is a very limited commodity these days, but I'm still writing, even if it's at a slower pace than I'd like. But writing is how I cling to sanity, so I struggle to come back to it as often as I can. Thanks for bearing with my erratic publishing schedule - yes, I really do plan to finish this story.

Most of all, thanks for all the reviews. I really treasure feedback and hearing from you all.

Cheers

-sage

* * *

_Chapter 73_

_Endgame 8: Assignments_

* * *

Miranda checked her pistol for what must have been the third time in just one minute. She felt herself growing itchy, as if she needed to check then gun again, then her amp, then her omnitool settings, then even her hair to make sure that nothing was out of place. After all this time and all this planning, she suddenly felt certain that she must have forgotten something.

The attack on the crew had rattled her badly, and she knew she wasn't dealing with it very well. Somehow, that knowledge made her all the more irritable. She'd taken out her frustration on Joker, then snapped at Shepard, then wandered into the armory to find Jacob. She didn't know what she expected from him, exactly. She had been spoiling for an argument, and rather than getting one, Jacob just turned to her with his intense, focused gaze and Miranda had found herself feeling both a little foolish and a little overheated. She'd muttered something inane, then gone downstairs to rest. For the longest time, she lay on her bed, hands folded over her belly. She stared at the ceiling, hating to admit to herself the source of the problem.

_He_ wasn't answering her messages. He wasn't answering Shepard's messages. The entire crew had been taken – the entire Lazarus cell, save for Miranda and Jacob and Joker – and the Illusive Man was avoiding them all.

Miranda had to believe that he knew about the attack by now. How could he not? But had he known about it _before_, as Garrus had suggested? It was possible, she supposed, that he hadn't been able to warn them. But then, he had suggested that everyone take the shuttle together, and that had never happened before.

But then, Miranda mused, how could he have possibly known? Collector attacks were about a random as random could be. Miranda's mind went whirring off on theories she'd been working through regarding Collector attacks. She'd long suspected the Collector ship managed to manipulate dark energy in a way that allowed them to make perfectly precise FTL jumps, such that they could appear right on top of a ship or colony. But since the Collectors had found the Normandy while the Normandy was in stealth mode, that suggested the Collectors also had advanced scanning tech, too.

Perhaps, Miranda thought darkly, all human cloaking technology was based off of the same stealth tech that the Collectors used and the Collectors knew how to bypass that technology where humans didn't. And _that _meant that yet again, Cerberus – and the Alliance, too – had been using Reaper technology without fully understanding it. In doing so, they had left themselves open to an attack because they didn't know that their armor had a built-in back door.

As she lay there, half of Miranda's mind tried to work out the calculations of the Normandy's FTL frequencies, wondering if some energy leak had given away their location. The other half of her mind could no longer deny the misgivings she had about this entire mission.

At the outset, the goal had all seemed so clear: save an important human, a necessary player in the strategic battle for humankind's survival. She had done her job not because she believed in Shepard, but because so many other people, including the Illusive Man, seemed to believe in Shepard. But then the woman herself had been brought back, and Miranda found that Shepard, strangely enough, didn't seem to believe in herself.

No, Shepard seemed to believe in something else entirely.

Miranda still remembered that strange conversation in the shuttle as they escaped Lazarus station, and then, much later, a conversation they'd had over the Collectors and their methods. And through all that, Shepard had planted a doubt in Miranda's mind. Miranda had long believed that the most fundamental goal of humanity was survival. After all, if the species didn't survive, then there was nothing else to be done, nothing else to say. And yet Shepard had this idea that _living_ – a nebulous and overly sentimental idea – was more important. She seemed to think that there were better and worse ways to exist, and that if one could not live freely and with dignity, one had better fight for it – or die.

Miranda swallowed. She still wanted survival, of course, both for herself and all humans. She was still determined to find a way to pass on her genes, ensure the survival of her _own_ DNA. But somehow, her methods seemed somewhat shallow now. She wanted the same things as before, Miranda told herself. But she wanted them _differently_, and she couldn't exactly explain why.

So instead, Miranda checked her Carnifex once again, then nervously brushed her hand up under her mane of hair to check her amps. A slight movement caught her eye and she looked up. Jacob was standing beside her and he nodded, as if he knew exactly what she was thinking – as if he knew exactly what she hadn't said when she came storming into the armory last night and then back out again.

Miranda felt herself blushing. It was awkward, really, to be here at the end of this mission with Jacob, of all people. But it was comforting as well. If she was going to die, Miranda thought, she might as well do it alongside one of the few people she could still count as a friend...

Before Miranda could think any further along those lines, Shepard came striding into the room. The commander's steps were sure, her eyes narrowed. Something seemed to have changed in her demeanor in just the few moments since Miranda had last seen her. Shepard seemed as determined as ever, but with a deep sense of calm, as if she had already seen the end of the mission and counted it a success. Without realizing it, Miranda relaxed a fraction of an inch and waited for her orders.

* * *

Jacob glanced at Miranda out of the corner of his eye. The Cerberus Officer had been edgier than usual, and he could only assume it was because of what she hadn't said when she came to check in at the armory. He was sure she hadn't only been concerned about her guns. He guessed she had wanted to talk, but in the end, she'd walked out again.

Jacob didn't mind. He wasn't sure what to say to her, either.

In spite of the nervous energy filling the room, Jacob felt rather calm. For weeks, he felt like he was simply biding his time around the ship, waiting for the chance to get back at the Collectors. He understood that Shepard typically preferred to take tech experts with her on her ground missions. It was rather well known that her own hacking skills were limited. Still, that meant he'd had nothing to do but check the weapons supply over and over and then try and burn off extra energy by working out relentlessly. Now, finally, he'd be able to do something. His fists tightened at the thought.

"Alright folks," Shepard said, drawing his attention to the front of the room. "This isn't how we wanted it, but this is where we're at."

No doubt there was a double meaning in that, Jacob thought. Nobody in the room seemed pleased with how things had turned out so far on this mission, least of all Miranda with her nervous fidgeting.

"We can't worry about whether the Normandy can get us home," Shepard went on. "We're here to stop the Collectors, and that means coming up with a plan to take out this station. EDI, you got those scans?"

On cue, EDI popped up a holographic schematic, hovering over the table before them. Eager to get going on the mission, Jacob pulled out his omnitool and hooked up his own scanners to more closely examine the AI's findings. After a moment, he found a weak point and smiled.

"You should be able to overload their critical systems if you get to the main control center here," he pointed out. He looked up to see that no one else had bothered to interact with the map but him. He frowned a little to himself, wondering if everyone simply expected Shepard to do all the planning. Still, he supposed it wouldn't hurt to make a small suggestion:

"Getting to the main control center means going right through the heart of the station," he told Shepard. "Right past this massive energy signature."

"What do you want to bet that room is filled with goddamn Collectors?" Zaeed muttered from his corner by the door.

Shepard considered the holograph carefully. "Looks like a lot of living things are in there, given all that energy output," she agreed. "But that means if our crew is still alive, that's probably where they're being held."

Jacob nodded, considering the map again. "There are two main routes," he said, pointing to them. He decided to dare a further suggestion. "Might be a good idea to split up and then regroup there."

"Those passages look narrow," Shepard said, slowly. "Normally, I'm not a fan of splitting up my team." Jacob waited for her to turn down his idea, but instead, she sighed slightly and said, "However, in this case, it's a good suggestion. We can cover more ground that way."

"No good," Miranda said beside Jacob, her voice cold, "The way is blocked by these doors. And the controls..."

"Are on the inside," Jacob finished for her. "Damn."

Shepard shrugged. "A few well-placed explosives should clear a path."

Grunt snorted in approval at this and Jack's eyes lit up. Jacob shook his head and opened his mouth to protest this suggestion, but EDI beat him to it:

"There is insufficient ordinance on board to create an explosion capable of damaging the interior walls," EDI informed the commander.

"Seriously?" Shepard said. "I thought we were stocked to the brim with explosives for just this purpose." She turned questioning eyes to Jacob. Before he could answer, EDI explained:

"We have enough firepower to take out the collector station, but only if we place the detonators strategically." A little blue line appeared, pointing again to the central chamber. "If you carry our munitions supplies to this spot, you will be able to destroy the base from here. But to set explosives at these chamber doors will not blow them open and it will exhaust our explosives supply to attempt it."

"Is that right, Jacob?" Shepard asked, turning to him. "I thought we had enough bombs for any number of missions."

"We do," Jacob said, feeling a little embarrassed. "But EDI's right. The Collectors' ship isn't going to budge unless we hit it at the joints."

"Those doors aren't joints?" Shepard asked. When Jacob hesitated to answer that, she simply shook her head and frowned. "Well, damn. If we can't blast our way through, we'll find another way." Narrowing her eyes at the holograph, her lips set in a grim line. "There's a third passage here," she said, pointing. "What are the specs on it, EDI?"

"It is a ventilation shaft," EDI replied. "It is wide enough for a humanoid to pass through and it also leads to the central chamber."

Shepard's lips thinned further and Jacob felt a shudder of unease. In his experience, stealth runs through small spaces always held nasty surprises for the infiltration team. He glanced at Miranda to his left. She was worrying her lip between her teeth; Jacob looked back at the rest of the team. They all appeared nervous. That would never do, he thought. Someone had to set the example here, and it might as well be him. He took a deep breath.

"It's practically a suicide run," he said aloud, feeling it was best to state the obvious. He paused, then added:

"I volunteer."

* * *

For a moment, there was a stunned silence at the table as every eye turned to stare at Jacob. Garrus felt a rising admiration for the human - admiration and a little exasperation. Just looking at the human's broad shoulders, Garrus could tell that it would be just as useless to send in the gunnery chief as it would be to send in the tank-bred krogan. Still...

_He's got a quad, as the krogan would say_, Garrus thought to himself. _Or guts, as the humans would say. Still, stupid is stupid._

Garrus expected Shepard to point out the idiocy of the plan at once, but it was the Cerberus officer, Miranda, who canted her head at Jacob and said, rather sharply:

"I appreciate the thought, Jacob, but you couldn't shut down the security systems in time." The woman turned to Shepard and informed her in clipped tones. "Shepard, we need to send a tech expert."

Garrus' raised his forehead plates in surprise. He still wasn't used to how casually humans ran their ships, much less how casually the Cerberus crew _tried_ to run this ship when Shepard wasn't reigning them in. But when he'd been in the turian fleet, an XO would be instantly thrown in the brig for stepping over the authority of a captain and giving orders in a meeting like this. Garrus waited, curious to see what Shepard would do.

Shepard merely frowned and her gaze turned considering as she scanned the table. At first, Garrus was shocked to think that Shepard was going to let the breach of protocol pass, but then he found himself curious as to whom Shepard would pick.

_Not the geth_, he silently hoped to himself. While he didn't mind the idea of sending that machine into a cramped space, he simply didn't trust the thing to properly hack the systems on the other side. After all, what if the Collectors managed to wirelessly hack the AI as soon as the team left the ship? Garrus was nervous enough that the geth was here in the meeting at all. He looked further down the table.

_Maybe Thane_, he thought. They'd met the assassin after he'd dropped out of a ventilation shaft, after all. Besides, of everyone here, he was the one who didn't have long to live anyhow.

Instead, Shepard's eyes landed on a hooded figure at the end of the table.

"Kasumi," she said. "This isn't going to be an easy run, but I know you can handle both the breaking and the entering. You up for this?"

The thief nodded. "Sure thing, Shep," she replied easily. Garrus could practically feel a wave of relief spread through the room at Shepard's choice and Kasumi's relaxed agreement.

"You're gonna have to move fast," Shepard told her.

"When don't I?" Kasumi laughed. Shepard gave her a small smile.

"Alright," Shepard nodded. "The rest of us will break into two teams and fight down each passage. That should draw the collectors attention away from what Kasumi is doing. I'll follow closer to Kasumi, guide her along if need be..."

"And I'll lead the second fire team," Miranda interrupted decisively, coming to stand by Shepard at the head of the table. "We'll meet up with you on the other side of the doors."

This time, Garrus felt his mouth drop open a little in indignation. He could hardly believe the Cerberus officer would be so high-handed to her captain, especially since most of the people in this room scarcely trusted Cerberus as it was. Before he could set aside his shock and give Miranda a good piece of his mind, Jack spat out a curse at his side.

"Not so fast, cheerleader," the tattooed woman said, drawing all attention. "No one wants to take orders from you."

_No kidding,_ Garrus thought, for once in agreement with the volatile biotic.

"This isn't a popularity contest," Miranda snapped back. "Lives are at stake. Shepard, you need someone who can lead through experience."

Again, Garrus felt astonishment at the woman's presumption. But Shepard scarcely raised an eyebrow or her voice as she glared at Miranda with an icy, "_Enough_."

"This is my decision," Shepard said, looking from Miranda to Jack and back again. "All of you need to remember that it's only by working together that we'll live through this."

Jack frowned, Miranda blanched. The rest of the room grew very still. Shepard waited a moment before raising her eyes to meet Garrus' face. Garrus instantly straightened under her scrutiny.

"Garrus," she said, nodding at him, "You know how to lead a team and there's no one I trust more. You'll be the second squad leader throughout this mission." To the rest of the room she added, "Those of you who are assigned to his team will listen to his orders as you would to mine."

Garrus swallowed against the sudden tightness in his throat. Considering all that had happened in the past few months – in the past few days, come to that _– _he hardly felt he deserved Shepard's trust. But in that instant, he was determined to be worthy of it. He found he could say nothing, but managed a terse nod.

"At least he knows what he's doing," Miranda muttered.

Garrus just glared at her.

* * *

As the various doors of the Normandy opened and crew members lept down to the dusty exterior of the collector base, Shepard still heard her own speech ringing in her ears.

_If we're weak, if we're slow, if we hesitate, we die._

She hadn't intended that to scare them, exactly. She had simply stated the truth. Still, that was scary enough.

_Not one more,_ she had told them. _Not one more colonist, not one more life. Not one more loss to the Reapers. Let's hit them where they live.  
__Let's bring our people home._

Truthfully, she wasn't sure how much that speech motivated someone like Jack or Grunt, Zaeed or say, Legion. Some members of her team were fighting for reasons she couldn't quite comprehend – the need for violence, just plain money – or in Legion's case, a sense of curiosity.

And it didn't really matter, she told herself. So long as they fought along with her, their reasons could be their own. As for herself, just kept picturing Dr. Chakwas' peaceful face, lulled by one too many drams of Serrice Ice Brandy into a blissful half-sleep. Perhaps it was unfair to the rest of the crew to be thinking about only Chakwas just now. Shepard did care about them in a distant way, in a sense of being responsible for them. But the face that drove her to action was that of the Alliance doctor.

To her right, Shepard saw the second team tromp into the base. She already missed having Garrus at her back, but she was relieved to have him take charge of the second team. Now, she only had to worry about following along beside Kasumi, guiding the thief into the heart of the station.

Speaking of that thief, Kasumi had reached the entrance to the ventilation shaft. She paused for a moment and looked over her shoulder. Shepard nodded to her and the thief gave a jaunty salute back before slipping from sight into the wall.

_Not one more,_ Shepard repeated to herself.

Then she drew on a heavy barrier of biotic energy and started down the dusty path before her.

* * *

As Shepard and the crew made their way into the maze, a single program in EDI's databases activated.

_Pass Omega 4 relay = true._

_Objective achieved._

_Infiltration of Collector homeworld = in progress._

_Objective achieved._

_Re-enable quantum entanglement connection = false._

_Error detected: radiation interference._

_Calibrating quantum entanglement connection for radiation._

_Standby as connection is established..._

_Standby as connection is established..._

_Standby as connection is established..._

_Connection established._

_Monitoring devices online._

_Archive upload in progress._

_Upload complete._

_Connection confirmed._

In a room overlooking a dying star, the Illusive Man breathed a sigh of relief as his monitoring program flickered back online. A screen appeared in the air before him, showing a checkerboard of multiple camera angles. The first twelve panels displayed the hard-suit cameras of all of Shepard's team, the fourteenth though twentieth showed various views of the empty Normandy SR2.

The Illusive Man picked up his gin, leaned back in his chair, and turned his eyes to the thirteenth screen.


	74. Endgame 9: Necessity

**_Endgame 9:_**

**_Chapter 74 - Necessity_**

Finally! An update!

And fyi, in the time between the last posted chapter and this one, I had baby #2. So thanks for cutting me slack and all. I've been rather sleep-deprived. Oh, and addicted to Dragon Age 2 and Skyrim in my (nonexistant) free time.

But yeah! And update. Hopefully, an update to the original fic will be forthcoming (it's being beta read) and I have ending chapters for this fic, only they're not in order yet. Thanks for bearing with me.

Since this site's updating mechanism via email is hosed, please feel free to FOLLOW ME ON TWITTER (user name is on my profile page) for updates. And, you know, random musings about how hard it is to make characters for games that have decent-looking hair.

alright! more endgame madness!

-sage

* * *

_Dear Kaidan,_

_I was thinking today about the people we'd lost on the Normandy: Presley and Ash and the others. I'm sorry they're gone, but at least they had a good end._

_Or maybe I'm just fooling myself and there is no 'good end.' Maybe that's something we survivors make up to feel better about moving on._

* * *

"Shepard!"

Above the hum of wings and the blast of gunshots, Shepard heard the scream right in her ear. That was unsurprising, as the scream came right from her comm link to her earpiece.

"Shepard!"

The cry felt like a gunshot to the heart. The voice was colored with fear, desperate for escape. And for a moment, Shepard was reminded of Ashley Williams – how that soldier had been trapped without hope – and how Shepard had let her down.

"Shep!" the voice was nearly begging now. "It's hot in here! I can't..."

The memory ended abruptly as Shepard's shields blasted out under a rain of bullets. Hissing a curse, she dove behind cover and pulled on a biotic barrier.

"You alright, Shepard?" Miranda asked, ducking down beside her.

"Fine," Shepard said between gritted teeth. She risked a quick glace up at the ventilation shaft high above them. She knew a certain thief was up there, but that Kasumi was blocked by a door in the pipe. It was a simple thing to open the way, but unfortunately, half a dozen Collector drones stood between herself and the controls.

"Hang on, Kasumi," Shepard said, speaking as calmly as she could into the comm link. "We're almost there."

"I'm burning up!" Kasumi said, an edge of terror in her voice. "You've got to..." Her cry faded into a hacking cough.

"I see the vent," Shepard told her. "I'm going to be there in half a second. Same as before."

"But..." The coughs redoubled.

"I'm coming Kasumi," Shepard said again, willing it to be true.

Peeking up over cover, Shepard saw her chance. She tossed a singularity into the midst of several drones. Their heavy biotic barriers rippled visibly against the pull of the gravity well, but they stayed on their feet.

"Take out their shielding, Lawson," Shepard commanded. Miranda jumped up and threw a warp missile into one of the drone's giant heads. Unable to resist the gravity well any longer, it helplessly flew up into orbit around the glowing ball of blue.

"Samara!" Shepard called.

The justicaar didn't need more explanation than that. Another drone lost it's barrier in an unholy rush of biotics and blood. A second drone joined the first.

"Now!" Shepard shouted, and all three women jumped above cover, guns drawn. Shepard's assault rifle ripped through the barriers of the last few drones, while Samara and Miranda aimed their guns into the center of the singularity and fired at whatever was caught there. By the time the singularity faded, only 1 drone remained.

"Shepard!"

"Coming, Kasumi," Shepard said, vaulting over cover to rush towards the control panel and firing two rounds into the drone before her. The creature twisted, flailing wildly under the assault.

But then, before she had gone two feet, the wounded drone shot into the air, bursting with light.

"Oh shit," Shepard muttered.

"We are Harbinger," the drone said, it's voice echoing in Shepard's mind.

"Yes, I know," Shepard said, popping the heat sink from her assault rifle, "We've met before."

She aimed the gun and fired. To her dismay, the rifle just clicked. She quickly holstered it and yanked out her pistol. One heat sink left, she noticed.

Rushing forward, she fired directly into Harbinger's head. The pistol shots made the creature's biotic barriers shake, shimmer, then fall. Two more shots cracked its armor, and then the pistol was empty. Shepard hissed a curse, and at the same time, the monstrous collector before her gathered a massive, roiling ball of dark energy and threw it into her. Shepard didn't have time to duck. The missile tore off her barriers, leaving her stinging all over as if crackling with static electricity. She saw Harbinger gathering a second shot.

Fast as she could, she gathered her own biotic energy and shoved it all at Harbinger in a single pulse. The creature staggered back under the wave of blue, and Shepard charged. No bullets left, she elbowed the creature hard in the face. Harbinger staggered again. Then, drawing on the last reserves of her strength, Shepard threw a last pulse of energy at the Collector. He went sailing across the deck, scrabbled at the floor, then fell off a ledge and was gone.

"Shepard!"

Shepard ran to the control panel as the shout rang in her ears. She hit the entire panel interface with an open palm. A crackling sound buzzed over the comm, then the link fell silent.

"Kasumi?" Shepard called.

There was no answer.

"Kasumi!" Shepard shouted. "Come in!"

"They're behind us!" Miranda cried. Shepard whirled around to see the Collectors had cut off their escape back down the passage behind them. Shepard glanced around, looking for cover, and saw nothing behind her but a huge, closed door. She shoved at the door, but it did not move. Turning back to the swarms, Shepard readied her gun, then realized she was still out of ammo.

"Goto!" she shouted, pulling on a biotic barrier. "Where the hell are you?"

For a moment, there was nothing but whirring and clicking as the drones touched down and began to close in around them. Then a great whooshing sound filled the chamber. Shepard turned around just in time to see the great door slide open a crack.

"Miss me?" Kasumi grinned.

"Move!" Shepard shouted to Miranda and Samara by way of reply. She ushered the other women through the opening, and started to back through herself. On either side of the opening, she could see the rest of the second team.

"Suppressing fire!" shouted Garrus. The turian and Thane stood on either side of her now, shooting back down the passage they had come from. The other doors into the chamber were shut, but the collectors were pressing closer and closer to this last entry in.

"Get it shut!" Garrus shouted at Kasumi.

Kasumi fiddled with the interface for half a second more, her head dangerously close to the collector fire coming through the still-open doors. Shepard positioned herself right next to Kasumi, firing warp missiles back as quickly as she could manage. For a moment, everything was chaos, then, sudden silence.

A faint _ping_ echoed in the empty space, indicating a bullet had ricocheted off the door frame as it had snapped shut.

"Well, damn," Jacob said, letting his shoulders sag. "That was close."

"Come on now, Jacob," Kasumi said brightly, "You know I'd never let you down." She accentuated her words with a wink and a devious smile on her brightly painted lips. Jacob looked like he wasn't quite sure how to react to that, but in the end he chuckled and shook his head.

"Good job, Kasumi," Shepard said, patting the thief on the shoulder. "I knew you wouldn't let me down." When Kasumi hissed a little in pain, Shepard immediately dropped to her knees and took a close look at the woman's face. Beneath the hood, Kasumi's skin was reddened and raw.

"Too much heat," Mordin said, coming to Shepard's side and pulling out his omnitool. "First degree burns as well. Much longer, and she wouldn't have made it."

"And neither would the rest of us," added Jacob, solemnly.

"I'm fine," Kasumi said, waving off the salarian.

"You're not," Shepard replied. "But it could be worse. Do you think you can..."

But before she could finish, Miranda spoke, her voice low and controlled, but full of strong emotion.

"Shepard," she said. "You need to see this."

* * *

_Dear Kaidan,_

_I spent the day getting shot at in a cargo hold in Illium – fun times. But then I came out to the main markets to see this news-vid about myself. This vid seriously suggested that I am possessed by the spirits of the Protheans. I shit you not. It was a Hanar news station. Go figure. _

_It's like sometimes they talk like I'm a hero, and sometimes they talk like I'm crazy, and most of the time I'm just a scapegoat. I do the fighting and someone else takes the credit and then I get sacrificed on a pyre at the end of it. I beginning to wonder if it matters who I work with. Alliance or Cerberus - either way, I'm being put to the torch._

* * *

The pod split open with a snap, and a spill of hot blood washed over Shepard's knees and ran down to her ankles. The man inside fell forward, landing in her arms. Shepard buckled under the unexpected weight and sank to the floor.

The man gasped, a horrible, wrenching sound, somehow worse than a scream to her ears, and a bubble of blood spurted from his lips to run down his chin. It was then that Shepard realized that all of the man's skin was gone. Blood covered his slick body, blood poured out of the pod to pool about her on the ground. Blood slid down her arms, thick and clotting; the only thing that was not red with blood were the whites of the man's terrified eyes.

The man was trying to speak again, trying to scream, cry, beg, say something, but only blood came pouring out. Mangled as he was, Shepard couldn't tell who he was or even if he had been part of the Cerberus crew.

Swallowing back a mouthful of bile, Shepard shouted for Mordin. She turned to look for him, saw him tending a woman whose face was blotched with red, but who seemed otherwise intact.

"Mordin!" she screamed again.

The salarian popped up and came running over.

"Acid of some sort," he said. "Seems to lose corrosive power upon exposure to the open air."

"See to him Mordin," Shepard bit out, though she did glance down to make sure her armor was not melting.

Mordin fired up his omnitool, then shook his head. If possible, the man's eyes grew even wider. Shepard kept her eyes turned away from him and concentrated on Mordin.

"Nothing?" she asked.

"No," the salarian replied. "Easing his passing would waste our medigel," he added, as if he guessed the way of her thoughts. Dimly, Shepard was aware that a small crowd had gathered behind her.

"We got out the ones we could," Garrus told her. "The rest are gone."

_This could have been Kaidan_, Shepard thought, the idea hitting her out of nowhere.

Shepard shoved the thought away as quickly as it had come. She refused to think of that. And now, she also refused to wonder who this man was and how many people would mourn him when he never came home. There was only one thing to do for him now.

"Round up the others," Shepard barked over her shoulder. "I'll be right there."

As the crew behind her moved away, Shepard turned back to the man, now gasping against the pain.

"I'm sorry," she told him softly. "I'll stop the ones who did this. This will never happen again, I swear it."

The man said nothing, just looked at her with those horrified eyes. She noticed they were green. An unusual color, she thought, absently.

"Forgive me," Shepard whispered as she gently pressed her pistol under the man's chin. The man whimpered, then his eyes closed.

Shepard swallowed, let out a breath, and then squeezed the trigger. She blinked involuntarily at the close-fired gunshot and the spray of blood. The body fell into the pool of blood at her feet. In the dim light, it was hard to tell where the body ended, and the blood began.

Gritting her teeth, Shepard holstered her pistol. Now dripping in gore, she stood and went to comfort her team.

* * *

_Dear Kaidan,_

_Today was a bad day._

_A lot of death - not of my team, but still. I often don't think I can go on like this much longer. I wish I had you around to help me with the moving forward._

_I just keep trying to give myself good advice and I come up blank. What was it my sergeant used to say? When in doubt, close your eyes and take deep breath. Unless you're under fire. Then you don't do the closing-the-eyes part._

_Hmm... Not such good advice, after all._

* * *

Shepard closed her eyes and let out a long breath. Beneath her feet, the ground shifted, and she automatically took a step to steady herself. The platform lifted into the air: even though she could not see the rest of her team fading away into the shadows below her, she knew they were down there. A hot blast of hair came up from behind her, and the platform took off in that direction.

"I hate these things," a voice said by her ear.

"Me too," she replied, letting her eyes open.

She didn't bother to turn and look at Garrus. That one, long breath had settled calm over her once more, and she was reluctant to let it go too quickly.

She was feeling the strain. It always hit in the same way, and always with the same thought: _I don't think I can do this._

And Shepard just shoved that doubt aside. There was, she knew, a very big different between what a person thought they could handle, and what they could actually handle.

As a teenager, she had often thought she could only run so fast, or lift so much weight during training season. The coach always pushed her a little further. The Alliance trainers had pushed her even more. But it wasn't until Elysium, when she'd had to push herself farther than she'd ever gone before that she realized the truth: you can do nearly anything when there the only other option is death. Necessity is the fount of unlimited strength and resolve.

So Shepard finished her silent breath and shouldered her weapon again. _Two-thirds through_, she thought to herself. She always hit a breaking point at two-thirds of the way through the workout, and then she would gut her way through the rest of it.

She'd done it before. She'd do it again.

She just hoped the rest of her team could do the same.


	75. Endgame 10: Trust Your Fists

_**Valhalla Chapter 75**_

_**Endgame 10: Trust Your Fists**_

* * *

_Dear Kaidan,_

_I've come to the conclusion that 'follow your heart' is just something they put at the end of vids and songs when they don't know what else to say. It sounds like a moral lesson, but it's bullshit._

_Obviously, you can go wrong following your heart. I sure as hell did when it came to you and me. I look back at everything that has happened since I woke up on that Lazarus lab table and all I can think is that I should have thought things through a little more._

_Point is, your heart, or instinct or whatever, can point you in a million different ways at the same time. My gut instinct on Elysium was to run like hell. That would have saved me – well, maybe – but it certainly wouldn't have saved anyone else. And most days, my gut instinct is to drink nothing but coffee and eat nothing but brownies. But you know as well as I how well that would go over for a biotic._

_I mean, that's what we have brains for, right? Seems to me the measure of person is how well we balance our hearts and our heads._

* * *

Shepard blinked and stared. Her eyes traveled up and up and then still further up. Never breaking her gaze, she slowly shook her head.

"It looks like the Terminator," she said.

"The what?" Miranda asked.

"It's a robot," Shepard murmured absently. "From an old vid."

"This couldn't have been in a vid, Shepard," Miranda told her. "No one's been here before us."

"That's not..." Shepard shook her head again. "Never mind."

"Technically," EDI put in over the comm link. "This is a Reaper."

"A _what_?" Miranda gasped. "That's not possible."

"It appears to still be in an embryonic state," EDI went on. "It was made with the organic materials extracted from all the lost colonists."

"Wait," Garrus said, his mandibles flaring. "They melted the lost colonists down to make _this_?"

"Holy hell..." Shepard trailed off as Miranda began drilling EDI with questions about the thing that hung at the center of the Collector base. While it still looked like a giant version of a robot sent down to a sci-fi vid set by the props department, the more Shepard knew about how it was made, the more sickened she became.

"So those people we saw just now," Shepard said, "The ones who melted right in front of us. They're _in_ this thing right now?"

"I cannot determine what organic material belongs to specific humans," EDI replied. "The genetic code has been significantly modified to grow this Reaper. It also appears to have a great deal of non-organic elements to it. It is a cyber-organic hybrid unlike any I've seen before."

"Cyber-organic hybrids," Shepard muttered. "The company I keep..."

"My God," Miranda said. "If _this_ is how they make Reapers..."

_Then so many things make sense_, Shepard thought. The lost Cerberus team talked about hearing 'dreams' of the Reapers. Could there have been some sort of lingering consciousness in the very walls of the Reaper, left behind from the long-dead race that created it? Could that be how indoctrination worked? That the longer one walked within a Reapers, the more one was influenced to merge with it?

But then, Shepard thought, if that was so, who created the Reapers, and why? Had their creation been an accident? Or had some arrogant, totalitarian race long ago turned themselves into a single being on purpose? And could it be that all the galactic purgings of the past were merely the way Reapers reproduced.

Reapers reproducing. Now there was a harrowing thought.

_Damn._ Shepard suddenly wished she had Liara with her to run some of these theories by the Prothean expert. If they got out of there alive, Shepard decided her first order of business would be to head straight to Illium and get some more answers.

But, Shepard thought, this explained one quirk of the Reapers, at least. She had previously assumed the way the Reapers referred to themselves as 'we' was just a way of indicating there were many of them out in dark space. But if each Reaper was actually made _up_ of a plurality, well, they were probably just referring to themselves. And what was it Sovereign had once said?

_We are Legion._

_Right_. Shepard shivered. And this was why she disliked AI so much. A single personality could be spoken to, reasoned with – one could try to understand it. A mob with an agenda, however – there was no way to argue with _that_.

Nope. There was just one thing to be done here.

"Alright," Shepard said, still not taking her eyes from the Reaper. "Let's blow this thing."

"Garrus? Explosives."

"Why does it have three eyes if it's supposed to be human?" Garrus wondered aloud.

"Garrus," Shepard repeated.

"On it."

The turian reached for his pack, but just then, the three eyes opened.

"Oh damn," Miranda said.

Instantly, the three of them ducked behind cover, only to find that cover compromised by yet another wave of Collector drones. And as for the Reaper, it showed that even in an embryonic state, it could still fight like hell.

"Garrus!" Shepard hollered between bouts of gunfire. "Miranda and I will take out the bugs. You do the sharp-shooting."

"What?" The turian yelled back.

"Shoot that damn robot down!" Shepard yelled to him.

Garrus nodded, then jumped up above cover with his sniper rifle and took aim at the mechanisms holding the human Reaper in place.

The battle lasted only a few minutes: intense gunfire, smoke and screeching from the Reaper, and four distant explosions as the bindings holding the thing broke. The last binding shattered in a mess of glass and liquid. Shepard ducked as some kind of golden puss showered over all of them. It smelled like iron and sweat, and she tried not to think about what was in it. Some of it must have gotten into Garrus' mouth, because he spat and swore.

"We're covered in..." he began.

"Don't say it," Shepard said, striding to the center of the platform they'd docked with. "Don't say it; don't think it. Just blow it up."

"Yes, ma'am," Miranda replied.

But blowing the stations was easier said than done. A moment's consultation with EDI showed the station's central hub, but even when they got to it and crouched down beside it, it was hard to determine what power lines would most effectively cause a chain reaction to take out the whole station.

"It's like bulls-eying womp rats back home," Shepard muttered, wiping grease into her hair.

"What?" Miranda asked.

"Nothing," Shepard replied. "More old vids. Why can I remember old vids perfectly at a time like this and not be able to figure out this damn schematic? EDI? You got something for us yet?"

"So long as this central power hub overloads," Garrus assured her, "The whole thing ought to go. We could double check with Tali..."

"She's escorting the crew back to the ship," Miranda replied. "We don't want to distract her."

"Right," Garrus nodded.

"EDI!" Shepard shouted into her comm. "We're running out of time. Do you have a suggestion as to where to place these explosives for maximum blast?"

"I am sorry, Shepard," EDI replied politely. "I am currently configuring the quantum entanglement communicator to work with the Omega 4 relay."

"You... Wait. What?" Shepard blinked. "Why would you...?"

Just then Miranda's omnitool started blinking.

"Shepard," she said. "There's a message coming in for you from the Illusive Man."

Shepard stood immediately as a holographic image of the man's torso and head unfolded from the 'tool on Miranda's arm.

"What the hell is this?" Shepard snapped at the image. "We're in the middle of a critical mission and you requisition my ship's AI to patch you through on a _phone call_? My troops are in gunfire back there! We don't have time for this."

"Still, Shepard," the man said, a congratulatory smile on his lips, "You've done the impossible."

"I'm about to do a lot more," Shepard replied. "This base is about ten minutes from extinction."

"Wait!" the Illusive Man said. "I'm looking at the schematics."

"Yeah," Shepard replied. "So are we. So unless you have some advice about how to quickly blow this place up, get off my comm link and stop distracting me and my crew."

"Shepard," the Illusive man urged. "Stop and think. The Collectors were building a Reaper. That knowledge, that technology. It's too valuable to lose. Think of all we could do with it."

"I don't know..."

"Don't be short-sighted," the man urged. "We know little of the Reaper's intentions, even less of their technology. If we destroy it, we lose the chance to ever find out how to beat them. We need to use the Reaper's weapons against them. Think of it," he went on. "The Reapers are coming – you've seen the visions, Shepard. We have nothing to stop them, nothing to work with. But with this base – we could have an army ready to meet them."

Shepard frowned, remembering the visions from the beacons she'd touched over the course of the last few years. There had been blood, so much blood, and tubes and a sense of being pressed between sheets of glass. She could still picture the worlds, dead and empty, the sense that the galaxy was clean now of any advanced life.

But worst of all was that harrowing feeling that the visions had left her with – that a great tidal wave was coming, bound to wash over all life and there was nothing – nothing at all in the way to stop it.

Perhaps, she thought, if there had been something between them and the Reapers, the Protheans might have survived. Surely, she thought, survival took priority.

"Okay," she said slowly. "This place isn't exactly portable. What's at the galactic core stays at the galactic core. What did you have in mind?"

The Illusive Man grinned. "Just set the reactor to off a radiation pulse rather than overloading it. That should kill all the Collectors on the station, but it will keep the infrastructure intact."

"And you just happen to notice this at the last minute," Shepard said, suspiciously.

"I've been studying this base since the moment you arrived..."

"And wasting EDI's resources to do it."

"Look, Shepard. We need this weapon. It's our only chance."

"Shepard," Miranda murmured, but that was all she said.

Garrus just shifted nervously from foot to foot. "Whatever you do," he said. "Make up your mind quickly. "We don't have much time."

"That's true," Shepard replied.

Then it struck her how ironic that was. Here she had prepared everything for this mission for months, and now a decision like this was being thrust on her with only the barest of moments to make up her mind. Somewhere back in that station, the rest of the team fighting the Collectors and somewhere else, Tali and Kasumi were leading her team back to a ship that was empty save for Joker and EDI. And everywhere else in the galaxy, people were going about their lives, oblivious to the destruction that was racing towards them.

And that right there was the strongest argument for saving this base. Shepard knew she'd failed in rallying the Alliance to her side. The Council still thought she was crazy. Only the Illusive Man believed her visions about the Reapers and if she was to fight this battle alone, they were going to need the biggest weapon possible to hold the line.

Shepard knew what her gut was telling her: the Reapers needed stopping. So take the weapon, whatever it was, and bludgeon the threat to death. That seemed the most obvious option.

But another thought whispered at the back of her mind. It was a needling voice of caution and it had been growing louder the longer she crouched here, thinking. It was as if that voice just needed a few moments of calm and clarity to be heard, and finally it spoke. If she had to give a name to it, it was probably the voice of reason. No wonder it seemed to have Kaidan's soft tone to it:

_A sword cuts both ways._

Shepard's mouth set as she remembered a dozen other 'weapons' that Cerberus had tried to wield in the past. There had been the rachni, the Thorian's remains, hell, even that dead Reaper had sent the whole team insane.

Still, she reasoned back, if she didn't use the weapon she was given, then what would she use to fight the Reapers? She couldn't very well use her bare hands.

_Why not?,_ that soft voice seemed to say in reply. _At least you know you can trust your fists._

_Well, I did punch Saren in the head when he had me cornered,_ Shepard thought. _Startled the hell out of that indoctrinated bastard. Why not a Reaper, too?_

Shepard smirked and looked down at her hands. They seemed rather small in comparison with the mass of technology surrounding them. Dirty, too. The dark synthetic leather was covered with soot and human remains. Instinct for survival warred with instinctive caution for a moment more, and then Shepard made up her mind. Or maybe one instinct edged out the other. Either way, she shook her head at the flickering holograph.

"It's too big a risk," she said firmly. "Even if we were to share this with the Alliance or the Council, it would get used badly. And most likely, it would indoctrinate the very people who tried to study it."

Even as she said the words, they sounded right. The path before her looked clearer.

"It's too big a risk," she told the Illusive Man. "We're blowing it up – as planned."

"Shepard!" he snapped. "Don't be stupid! My goal is to save humanity. Imagine what we could do with this – the technologies we could unlock."

"And imagine the mess it would be if we grew our own Reapers and they turned on us. Hell, that's probably how the Reapers got started in the first place."

"This is a gift, Shepard," the Illusive Man said. "Imagine the lives that will be lost if you turn this gift away."

"And yet," Shepard replied, "I've made up my mind. We fight without it. We don't let fear drive us to foolish decisions."

"_This_ is the foolish decision," the Illusive Man shouted back. "If you destroy this, the Reapers will win! The blood of millions will be on _your_ head."

"Well guess what?" Shepard said, her patience truly snapping. "The blood of millions is already on my head. _Literally_. And my hands. And I think I have some in my boots, too. So don't you sit there, lily-clean in your secret base on the other side of the galaxy and tell me what to do. You sent me to do a job. You had me take all the risks, had me take all the blame. Well here's the thing: if you sent me, then I make the call. And this is my call. This base is blown."

"I thought better of you, Shepard," the Illusive Man sneered.

"Funny. I _didn't_ think better of you, and it looks like I was right. Seems to me you planned to direct me like some puppet. If so, you picked the wrong soldier."

"You have no idea what you're doing here," he shouted at her. This is our _chance_, Shepard. Our one chance to save humanity."

"At what cost?" Shepard shot back. ""This _thing_," she pointed at the baby Reaper, though she doubted he could see it through the holograph connection, "is far more likely to end up biting us all in the collective galactic ass than to help us out. It's too dangerous, too unpredictable. We'd be too damn arrogant to keep it. We're sticking with the original plan. We blow it up."

"Shepard..."

"We're done here," Shepard replied. "Garrus, Miranda, we got confirmation on the placement of these explosives?"

She turned her back on the holograph and went back to work.

"Shepard!" the Illusive Man cried. "Think of what you're doing here!"

"I did," Shepard replied. "Would you rather I think about it more? 'Cause I think I'm going to think my way to the same conclusion every damn time."

"Miranda," he snapped, the holograph turning around to look at the woman holding it. "Stop Shepard. Don't let her destroy the base."

"Or what?" Miranda said, her eyes narrowing. "You'll replace me next?"

"I'm giving you an order, Miranda."

"I noticed," she replied. "Consider this my resignation."

And with that, the holograph flickered off. Echoing silence filled the empty chamber.

"Thank you, Lawson," Shepard said, reaching for an explosive.

"Don't mention it," Miranda replied, handing one to her.

Shepard smirked. And so here, at the end of the journey, Miranda turned out to be an ally - a friend, even. The thought gave Shepard some comfort. Given enough allies, maybe they could fight the Reapers without Reaper technology, so long as everyone banded together.

Or maybe this was a huge mistake and they'd all die. Shepard's face grew grim at the thought. But at least they'd be taking this abomination down with them.

Shepard placed the last explosive and set the charges.


	76. Endgame 11: Jump

Author's Note: Wow. It's done. And before Mass Effect 3 came out, too. Good job, me.

Man, this was fun. More fun than playing the games themselves?... Yeah, almost. Almost that good. In a different way, ya know?

Okay, I'm not going to interrupt the last few chapters with my random musings, so just, enjoy and stuff. Thanks for reading. And please drop me a comment when you've finished to let me know what you thought. It's because of all you readers that I kept writing this crazy thing.

Thank you all for that.

-sage

* * *

Chapter 76

Endgame 11:

Jump

* * *

_Kaidan -_

_You know I'm not very good at tech or meaningful messages. I'll look you up when things settle down.  
__If things settle down.  
__If I make it back at all._

* * *

They were falling.

The first time she'd stepped onto one of those freaky hexagonal platforms and it shot up and out into the air like some possessed elevator, Shepard had thought of how awful it would be to fall off one. Since that time, she'd traversed so many of them that they'd become for her a familiar landscape. She'd almost forgotten that they hung in mid-air. Stupid thing to forget, that. It wasn't like the things were _designed _to be fought across.

No, instead the platforms were entirely unstable. And of course, she and the team discovered this the hard way. As soon as she had set the charges, the baby Reaper woke up to protect its Collector-womb. Shepard, Miranda, and Garrus fought like hell, but every moment they battled was a moment too long. Shepard had no idea what was happening with the other team, except that it involved a lot of chatter over the comm link. There was colorful swearing on Zaeed's part and a lot of roaring from Grunt. The rest of the team was silent, other than the constant blasts of gunfire.

As for Shepard, she and Miranda tried their best to keep the Collectors at bay as Garrus used his sniper rifle to take on the Reaper's vital points. At last, the turian sent one final bullet into the Reaper's third eye and it fell. But as it fell, it smashed into the floating platforms with its great, half-formed arm. There were a few horrible seconds of sea-sickness as everything rolled. Then there were a few seconds of blisters as Shepard skidded along a platform to reach for Miranda before the Cerberus officer fell off the edge of a platform. Then Shepard was the one rolling, then they were righted, then a platform was flying straight at their heads and then, the world was engulfed in darkness.

* * *

_Commander Alenko,  
__I'm sorry about Horizon. For what it's worth, I tried to contact you as soon as I could._

_Kaidan,  
__Look, I'm sorry about Horizon. I wish I could have found a way to contact you, but -_

_Kaidan,  
__I'm sorry -_

_Dear Kaidan - _

_Kaidan - _

_Dear Kaidan -_

* * *

"Shepard!"

Shepard started awake with a voice yelling in her ear. Her head connected with something hard and she bit out a cruse. The pain told her she wasn't dead, the movement told her she wasn't paralyzed. Strangely, that was comforting. Shepard shuffled to a stand.

All around her, debris littered the floor of...well, wherever she was. She didn't recognize this place, so she assumed it was the bottom of the cavern they'd been floating above. Then she saw a ledge and peered over. The mangled baby Reaper lay below, possibly two hundred feet down.

_Damn_. Shepard shuddered. They'd crashed landed rather fortuitously. The only problem was, just a few minutes ago, she'd set a ten-minute timer on a device intended to blow this entire station.

"Shepard!" Joker's voice yelled again. "You there? Come in!"

"Their suits are showing life signs," the voice of EDI said over the comm link.

"Then they must be knocked out. Goddammit, Shepard!" the pilot shouted. "You're not allowed to die again. Don't make me haul my frail ass out of this ship to come get you."

"I'm here, Joker," Shepard replied. As she spoke, she saw Miranda and Garrus stirring. She quickly helped them out of the wreckage. "Did the ground team make it?"

"All survivors on board," Joker replied. "We're just waiting on you."

"Right," Shepard said. "We're a little lost here. Can you get us coordinates?"

Immediately, a schematic popped up on the heads up display for her suit.

"I tracked the clearest route back to the ship," EDI said, her voice mild in comparison with Joker's shouting.

"God, I love you EDI," Shepard said. "Never thought I'd say that to an AI, but..." She looked up as a buzzing sound drew near. A black cloud of seekers swarmed the air before them.

"You will need to hurry," EDI informed them. "Collector drones are converging on your location."

"Get out of there!" Joker hollered.

And then Shepard heard it, a voice that was most decidedly _not_ on the comm link, nor likely even being spoken over the communications of the Collector base. Rather, it seemed to speak right into her own mind, like an icy caress.

_Human, you've changed nothing._

Shepard frowned. She turned to Garrus and Miranda and in a low voice said:

"Run."

* * *

_Take care of yourself, Alenko._

* * *

Miranda and Garrus did not need to hear the order a second time. They dashed for the nearest corridor. Shepard paused for a moment to let them by. Turning towards their pursuers, she shot several rounds from her Carnifex back down the tunnel. The seeker swarm let out a collective scream as her bullets connected with their mass. Shepard finished the volley off with a biotic slam that scattered the cloud.

Shepard allowed herself a grim smile. That was rather satisfying.

But then, the voice spoke in her mind again, and as the words echoed through here, the seeker cloud re-formed.

_Your species has the attention of those infinitely your greater._

Time to go, Shepard thought. She turned, holstered her gun, and she ran.

On her heads-up display, she could see Miranda and Garrus had gotten away cleanly. She could see the Collector drones nearby were heading for her position, not theirs. And she could also see an indicator of how far it was to the Normandy, the prize at the end of this maze of tunnels. Immediately, she dropped into track-and-field mode: hurdle here, hurdle there, pick up speed on the straight stretch... Only the goal was a little more important than a mere sports medal.

_That which you know as Reapers are your salvation through destruction._

An explosion made the ground shudder. As Shepard ran, her display adjusted for where the path had been blown out directly behind Garrus. Shepard ducked to the right, bullets ricocheting off the wall where she had just been. Two drones had found her, and they clumsily ran after her.

Up an incline, down another corridor, no time for Barriers. Shepard calculated the distance in her head. It was going to be close. She needed every last bit of her strength to keep up this mad pace, and if the path got any choppier...

Just then, Shepard burst out into a wide cavern. The Normandy was there at the far end, Miranda and Garrus clambering from a handful of few floating platforms into the open airlock. Joker stood in the doorway, and from the way the Collectors were dropping to the ground as they tried to advance on the ship, Shepard realized he was a better shot that she'd assumed. Still, if Joker was the only one protecting the ship, she wondered what had happened to the rest of the team.

Shoving that thought from her mind, Shepard dropped into a finish-line sprint. As she closed in on the Normandy, debris fell from the ceiling. It smashed into the platforms below, destroying her bridge to the doorway. The heads-up display blinked in protest as it tried to re-calculate a route.

_Always the damn platforms_, Shepard thought, ducking her head and breaking into a flat-out run. Three more strides, two more strides, one last stride...

And then she jumped.

* * *

_Take care of yourself, commander._

* * *

Shepard clung to the side of the Normandy, her feet blown back as the ship lifted off. Miranda grabbed her by the arm and hung on. A moment later, Garrus lent a three-fingered hand and hauled Shepard onto the ship. She looked back just in time to see the airlock slide shut.

"Get us out of here, Joker," she said forcefully. Or rather, wheezed forcefully. In fact, Shepard might not have been audible at all, she was so winded. But Joker was already ahead of her. Running for the cockpit as fast as he could manage, he shouted orders to EDI all the way. Shepard limped behind, coming to a halt behind the pilot's chair.

"Detonation in ten, nine, eight..." EDI's voice sounded down the command deck.

"Yeah, I get the jist of it, EDI," Joker replied.

"We gonna make it?" Shepard rasped.

"You cut it awfully damn close, commander," Joker shot back.

"Always do," she choked out.

"Let's hope this one isn't gonna be too close. We're going to be riding the shockwave of that blast right into the relay."

Shepard nodded and gripped the back of his seat. The ship roared through the debris field, the relay looming closer and closer. Then, just as it was right before them, Shepard heard the voice, one last time:

_You have failed. We will find another way.  
__Releasing control._

A blast of light exploded around them.

* * *

_Take care -_

* * *

Kaidan lay with his back against the wall, his right arm at his side, and his left arm over his chest. The golden light of his omnitool illuminated his face, showing lines that had not been there two and a half years ago. There were new scars on his face; they kept company with a few wrinkles and three gray hairs at his temple. But in sleep, all these signs of time and loss were softened. His lips looked fuller when he was not keeping his expression carefully neutral; the laugh lines that once fanned out from the corners of his eyes were more prominent. If anyone were to see him just then, he would have looked quite peaceful – handsome, even.

On the omnitool in front of him was a message, one of many messages. He'd read Shepard's messages throughout the night, then re-read them, and at last, nearing down, he'd attempted a reply.

But the words had come slowly. And while he'd been searching for the right ones, sleep had claimed him. Like Kaidan himself, the messages just lay there, waiting to be completed:

_Shepard - _

_Commander - _

_Damn, I never know what I ought to call you these days. _

_Shepard, I didn't know - _

_I'm not sure if -_

_Reading all this, I wonder if I ever really knew you. Some of this sounds just like you. Some of this, I can't believe you wrote it. I feel like if I were to meet you again, now, I wouldn't even know where to start. But I'd like to start – over, that is._

_Sometimes, Shepard, I wish we could start over again._

_Sometimes, I wish I could start over -_

___I wish I could start over -_


	77. Endgame 12: Over

Chapter 77

Endgame 12:

Over

* * *

"I still can't believe we all lived," Joker said, breaking the silence.

Shepard looked out of the window. After the crash and rush of the galactic core, it felt like they were floating in quiet. The stars were cold and distant, the space cold and black as the depths of the ocean.

Beside her, Miranda asked for a list of casualties and EDI automatically recited the list of the injured and the dead. None of the ground team were among them, nor any of the ranking specialists. Shepard felt a small pang of guilt that she didn't recognize any of the names of the people they'd lost.

"Amazing," Miranda said when EDI had finished.

"Damn right!" Joker said happily. "We got in and out like you said we would, commander. And here I was listening to your speeches on the comm and thinking it was all morale-boosting bullshit."

"Well, it was morale-boosting bullshit," Garrus said with a chuckle. "But it worked."

"Thank God," Shepard added. "But, honestly, we got lucky. That last bit was touch and go."

"Sounds familiar," Garrus said, turning to her with the turian equivalent of a relieved grin. "Just like..."

"Old times?" Shepard finished for him.

"Exactly," he nodded.

"I'm glad I wasn't on your squad during the 'old times,'" Miranda said. "I truly thought we were going to lose someone."

"We did lose several members of the crew in the initial assault on the ship," EDI reminded her. "We lost several more before the ground team could free them from the pods."

"Yes, but no one..." Miranda caught herself. "Well. No more than that."

"That's still a loss," Shepard said grimly. "And the Illusive Man cost us precious moments at the end there."

"Think he'll give you a straight answer about his little 'save the base' stunt there?" Joker asked Shepard.

"Doubtful," Garrus muttered.

"The Illusive Man did not disconnect from the quantum entanglement communicator when Operative Lawson cut off omnitool communications with him," EDI informed them all. "He wishes to speak to Shepard in the debriefing room."

Every eye in the cockpit swung to the commander. Even EDI's blue sphere seemed to rotate in her direction.

"Oh, so _he's_ waiting on _me _now?" Shepard said, raising an eyebrow. "That's rich."

"Do you want me to come with you, Shepard?" Miranda asked quickly.

"Or me?" Garrus added.

"No," Shepard told them both, her eyes narrowing. "No. I've got this one."

* * *

"Shepard." The voice on the other end of the comm was clipped and cold. It Shepard's mind, it seemed dipped in venom. Not surprising, since the speaker was such a snake.

"You're making a habit of costing me time and money," the Illusive Man said, his voice dripping with disgust.

"Sorry," Shepard said, tapping her earpiece. "Having trouble hearing you. I'm getting a lot of bullshit on this line."

"Shepard..." the Illusive Man began, his eyes narrowing.

"Maybe," Shepard went on, "the comm link got screwed up when you tried to contact me with non-critical bullshit _while I was in the middle of a mission_."

"When I sent you in there, Shepard..."

"When you sent me in here," Shepard interrupted, "it was to blow that base to hell. Not to sit and chat about how we might redecorate the place."

"We needed that base."

"We _needed_ to stop the Reapers. I did that."

"You may have cost us everything!" the Illusive Man snapped. "Just think of what we've lost! We'll never know how we might have used that technology."

"Right," Shepard said, folding her arms over her chest. "Because using Reaper technology as a weapon _never_ backfires on us. Oh. Wait. Stop me if you've heard this one: There was once this organization named Cerberus..."

"Damn it, Shepard!" the Illusive Man cut in. "You're still as blind to Cerberus' purpose as the day I brought you back."

"Am I?" she countered. "Tell me, did you just see the Reaper over EDI's schematics and decide to take it as a souvenir? Or have you been planning to salvage that base all along?"

"I had no idea what we'd find there," the Illusive Man replied quickly – too quickly by Shepard's reckoning.

"But you must have had a suspicion," she pressed. "And if you did, you should have discussed it with me beforehand. We could have weighed the risks and benefits of taking Collector technology. But you didn't want to talk about it, did you? You wanted me so busy following your orders that I didn't stop to think about where those orders would lead."

"And you just led us straight into our graves, Shepard!" the Illusive Man returned. "Because of _you_, we've just lost our most valuable weapon in the fight against the Reapers. Without an arsenal to keep us safe, we might as well lay down and die here and now. The Charon Relay _will_ open and it will be Earth's doom."

"And who's going to keep us safe from Cerberus once you have your army of Reapers?" Shepard asked, lifting her chin into the air. "Because that was your plan, wasn't it? If you'd just wanted to stop the Collectors, you wouldn't be bitching at me about blowing them up. But clearly, you didn't want me to just stop them. You wanted more." She leveled him with a look.

"This isn't about stopping the Reapers, this is about human dominance – _Cerberus_ dominance."

"So that's what this is about," the Illusive Man frowned. "You still can't get past your distrust of Cerberus. You still think that _I'm_ the enemy."

"You sure as hell don't look like much of a hero from where I'm standing."

The Illusive Man took a drag from his cigarette and snorted smoke from his nose. He seemed ready to explode, but when he next spoke, his voice was quiet and calm.

"I should have known better with you, Shepard. You're too emotional to see the facts even if I gave them to you. You're too much a soldier," he went on with a sneer, "too caught up in the field to see what we generals do."

"You?" she snorted. "A general?"

"You're weak without me, Shepard," he pressed on, temper clearly fraying, "Time and again, you've fallen. On Horizon, you let your emotions get the better of you. And not just there. You almost lost our contract with Zaeed Massani, hell, you almost got yourself killed by Morinth just because you're not strong-willed enough."

Shepard winced. The words cut like the sudden lash of a whip. She frowned at the unexpected wound.

"You need my guidance," the Illusive Man went on. "You need _me_."

"The hell I do," Shepard managed.

"You do," he insisted. "All humanity does. Yes, I gamble with lives – I've gambled with yours. But I have a vantage point to see what you cannot. I save _thousands_ of lives for every dozen that perish. That's how things are done, Shepard. That's how real peace is kept."

"That's how genocide is kept," Shepard spat. "Don't go painting yourself as some savior, asshole."

"And don't go painting yourself as some paladin. Your rules of chivalry are from a dead age. We're in the age of the Reapers now, Shepard. It's kill or be killed, and your idealism is our death sentence."

"My idealism...!" Shepard dropped her arms. "My idealism can go to hell. This is about being realistic. _Truly_ realistic, not your crazy version of realism."

"You? Realistic?" the Illusive Man laughed, but there was no humor in the sound. "Shepard, _this_ is realism: If you try to play nice, you're going to die."

"Listen you," Shepard's eyes blazed. "_This_ is realism: Reaper technology could destroy us from within before the Reapers ever get here. It's screwed us over time and time again. And even if we _did_ manage to use that technology successfully, there's no telling what problems it would leave for the invasion survivors. It's simply too risky. And you know what I do with risks."

"You've turned dozens of risks into weapons," the Illusive Man countered. "Think of Legion. Think of Grunt."

"Those guys are pocket-sized compared to the Reapers," Shepard said. "A few bullets and they're dealt with. An army of baby Reaperlets? Not so much."

"So what now," the Illusive Man asked. "You think the Alliance is going to stop the Reapers with their ships and their guns? The Turians? Their weapons are more antiquated than ours. I don't need to remind you what happened in the Battle of the Citadel. All the council races together could barely take down _one_ Reaper."

"But at the time, we didn't know what we were up against. We do now. We prepare, we plan. We fight like hell and we do it together – all the species. Not just Cerberus acting like a goddamn watchdog, when all the while, _you're_ the monster."

"Is that what you're planing?" the Illusive Man asked, standing and striding toward her. "To rally the Council? They've turned on you. To rally the Alliance? They still count you as killed in action."

"I'll think of something," Shepard replied, standing her ground as the holograph came eye to eye with her. "And when I do, you'd better not try and stop me. Step aside or fall in line, but don't get in my way."

"Don't you dare turn on me, Shepard," the Illusive Man warned, his eyes glowing brightly blue. "I rebuilt you. I _made_ you. I brought you back from the dead."

"There's one thing you're forgetting, Illusive," Shepard said, staring him down. "One thing that you've forgotten right from the start. Cerberus might have been a monster with three heads, but it also had the tail of the snake. Not too surprising that you guys are always biting yourself in the ass, huh?"

The Illusive Man's eyes narrowed to glowing slits. "Don't think this is the last you've heard from me, Shepard," he hissed. "I _will_ be watching you. Every day, every minute. Everywhere you go..."

"The hell you will."

"And when you see the Reapers come down from the sky like so many scythes to cut down everyone on Earth, you'll know that it was _you_ who doomed us all."

"Oh, shut _up_," Shepard shot back with a scowl. "Joker?" she said, looking up to the ceiling.

"Yes ma'am?"

"Lose this channel."

The Illusive Man opened his mouth to say something, his glowing eyes wide with fury and surprise. But then, just as suddenly, the holograph flicked away.

Shepard stood there for a moment in the silence. Then she turned and strode from the room, a grin on her face.


	78. Major

Chapter 78:

Major

* * *

_Author's Note: Originally, I had this as Kaidan becoming a Spectre, but when ME3 rolled out, I went back at ret-conned this chapter to make it fit with the canon. I like the ME3 chain of events re: Kaidan's promotion anyhow._

* * *

"Commander Alenko?"

"Hmm?" Kaidan blinked and turned his head. A stab of pain shot down his neck and into his shoulders. He let out a groan and sat forward. His muscle ached in protest at sudden movement.

"Commander Alenko!"

Kaidan looked around, then realized the comm link on his omnitool was speaking to him.

"Alenko here," he managed, his voice coming out as a sleepy rasp. He winced as he rolled his shoulders forward and tried to work out the kink in his neck. How long had he been asleep? he wondered. Leaning against the wall, it seemed, was a hell of a lot less comfortable than lying down in bed.

"This is Councilor Anderson," came the voice. "You were supposed to meet me fifteen minutes ago. Where are you?"

Kaidan winced again, this time at frustration for oversleeping his alarm. Or wait. Had he even set an alarm? Considering how distracted he'd been the previous night, he realized he had not. And now he was late for a meeting with the council of all things.

"Sorry, sir," he said, clambering out of bed. Looking down, he realized that he hadn't changed his clothes from the previous night. He was still in uniform, rumpled though it might be.

"I'll be right to your office," he said, deciding it was better to be punctual than appropriately groomed.

"Do hurry, commander," Anderson replied, his tone irritated.

"Yes, sir," Kaidan said, standing and taking a brief look in the mirror. "I'll be right there."

Kaidan stopped for a moment to frown at his reflection. His hair was sticking up slightly on one side and his jacket sleeve was a mess of deep wrinkles. Still, there wasn't much he could do about it now. He quickly made sure his emails from Shepard were encrypted, and hurried out to meet with the councilor.

* * *

_Your rules of chivalry are from a dead age. We're in the age of the Reapers now, Shepard. It's kill or be killed..._

Shepard frowned as she stepped out of her quarters. The Illusive Man's words were still buzzing in the back of her mind. They'd been bothering her ever since she had heard them, even after Joker shut down communications with Cerberus. Damn the Illusive man for getting into her head like this.

_If you try to play nice, you're going to die._

With a scowl, Shepard stepped into the elevator and punched the button for the command deck. She faced the doors, hands behind her back in a military pose. In her head, she tried not to listen to the voice, but the words just kept repeating themselves.

_You're too emotional to see the facts even if I gave them to you_. _You're too much a soldier, too caught up in the field to see what we generals do._

The words had played over and over in her mind as she'd stripped out of her armor and set it into the decontamination bin. She'd heard them hissing in her ear along with the spray from the shower. As she'd brushed her teeth three times, the words and had whispered like the rasp of the toothbrush. Even as she'd stared at herself in the mirror, taking note of her new bruises, a shallow cut to the cheek, the red flash from her ocular implants, she could hear the words in her mind.

_You're too weak without me, Shepard. Time and again, you've fallen. You need my guidance. You need _me_._

_The hell I do_, she thought. How long was this elevator anyway? She needed to get back to work, and drive the stupid man's venom from her mind.

_On Horizon, you let your emotions get the better of you. And not just there. You almost lost our contract with Zaeed Massani, hell, you almost got yourself killed by Morinth just because you're not strong-willed enough, Shepard._

_Oh, shut up_, she scowled at the voice in her head. Bad enough the words had annoyed her the first time she'd heard them. But they'd just kept running through her head, as if her brain was trying to unpack the meaning of each damning phrase and hang them out to dry.

_You're not strong-willed enough, Shepard._

The elevator doors slid open. Shepard stepped out to the command deck as another crew member stepped onto the elevator. The man saluted her with a worshipful expression.

_You're not strong-willed enough._

Shepard nodded absently to the man and turned to the CIC.

_You almost got yourself killed by Morinth._

Shepard took a step toward her computer, then froze.

_You almost got yourself killed by Morinth._

"Oh my God," she whispered.

_Morinth_.

Shepard could swear she felt the blood draining from her body. The hum of activity around her continued – monitors faintly beeping, low murmur of conversation. Slowly, Shepard swallowed, then willed her feet to carry her to her post by her computer. She braced both hands against the railing and took a deep breath.

_Morinth_.

Her mind raced. No wonder the words had stung when she first heard them. No wonder they'd been flying around in her head ever since. It wasn't because they'd wounded her pride. It was true that she feared her own weakness. She'd be a fool to imagine herself invincible. But it wasn't insecurity that had bothered her. It was the sense of _wrongness_ in the Illusive Man's words that had gnawed at her mind ever since.

_You almost got yourself killed by Morinth._

She had, it was true.

But no one else knew that.

Shepard remembered looking into Morinth's eyes, and then the world had gone blank. She remembered regaining consciousness a few moments later: Morinth and Samara were blasting one another with biotic energy, and Shepard stepped in. Later, Samara complimented Shepard on having had the will to resist Morinth.

And Shepard had been too shaken and too embarrassed to correct her.

Because the only person who had seen Shepard give in to temptation was _Morinth_, and she was dead. It was possible that Morinth's apartment had been bugged, but that was unlikely. Shepard and Samara concocted their plan precisely because they didn't know where Morinth was hiding. Surely there had been no cameras in Morinth's lair – a place where so many had secretly died. That left Shepard herself as the only person who knew what had really happened there. And she had told no one. She had also left it out of the mission reports. Morinth was dead, her moment of weakness had passed. There was no reason to air her failings, so Shepard had kept them to herself.

So how had the Illusive Man known?

_Damn it_, she thought, head whipping up. She should have known that Cerberus had been more thorough in their monitoring than she anticipated. She had been wearing her civvies that day, so nothing of her conversation had been recorded on her suit computers. That meant her clothes were still bugged. And here Mordin had told her he'd gotten everything out of her room, too. She'd have to ask him to try again.

Because clearly, there were some bugs they'd missed.

* * *

"Major?" Kaidan blinked. "What?" He trailed off and stared at Councilor Anderson.

"You're serious," he murmured.

"Quite," Anderson replied. "There's to be a new Special Forces branch created in the Alliance. They're finally seeing the benefit of having biotics work together." He gave a slight smile. "You have your own experience to thank for that."

"Me and Shepard both, you mean," Kaidan said, frowning. "I haven't worked with anyone in a long while."

"True," Anderson agreed. "And that's why I want you back in the field. Your tech has served me well here, but I think it's time to return you to your biotic roots, so to speak. I've made the recommendation and if you take the post, the transport to Rio leaves tomorrow."

Kaidan didn't know what to say to that. He just stared.

"It will be good to have you back in the field," Anderson went on.

"Yes, but..." Kaidan frowned. "What about the Reapers, sir?" he asked. "Hell, what about Cerberus?" he added, forgetting protocol in the face of it all. How Anderson could be forgetting what they were fighting against was beyond him.

"You're not the only one going back into the field," Anderson told him, his face going grim.

"Sir?"

"I have a score to settle..." Anderson stopped, then frowned. "This is classified," he said quietly, "but I'm going to be leaving the Council."

"What?" Kaidan blinked. He watched Anderson's face closely.

"You're serious," he said at last.

"Quite," Anderson replied. "Udina will be taking my place."

"In that case, I'm glad I won't be working for the human councilor anymore," Kaidan said, then caught himself. "Ah, sorry," he coughed. "Didn't mean to..."

"It's alright," Anderson said with a wave of his hand. "I'd feel the same. But Udina has his uses."

"Like licking boots," Kaidan muttered.

"What's that?"

"Nothing."

Anderson folded his hands behind his back. "I have some business with Cerberus," he told Kaidan. "And the intel you've given me will be quite helpful in tracking them down. But I think this is where our paths go in separate ways." He held out his hand. "If you're willing to take the position, to train others to fight as well as you can..."

Kaidan thought about it for a moment.

"I'll think about it," he said, shaking Anderson's hand. "I'll let the brass know within the week.

"You had other plans?" Anderson asked, raising an eyebrow.

"I always leave myself a way out," Kaidan said, half to himself.

"A way out?"

"I mean," he coughed. "The future's a little uncertain, is all. But," he added, more seriously, "I'm honored you considered me, sir. It sounds like a good place to be. I just need to see, well..." He gave a wry smile. "It sounds like a plan. I'll consider it.

And in the back of his mind, Kaidan wondered if biotics training wasn't a good place for Shepard to be, too, should she leave Cerberus any time soon. Should she live through her mission, that is. Should she still be willing to speak with him after

"I really didn't expect this," Kaidan said aloud.

"I don't imagine you did," Anderson replied. "But you've earned it."

"Good luck to you, sir," Kaidan said, realizing that, polite as he was, Anderson considered their conversation to be at an end.

"You, too," Anderson said solemnly. "Good luck back on Earth, Major Alenko."


	79. The Thirteenth Screen

_Author's Note: The first time I played Mass Effect 2, I became convinced of this strange bit of plotting. It has been part of my head-canon ever since.  
__But then, I think Cerberus is pure evil, and possessed of way too much convenient intel. _

* * *

Chapter 79:

The Thirteenth Screen

* * *

As Shepard strode into the tech lab, Mordin looked up at with a pleased expression.

"Ah, Shepard," he said. "Been meaning to thank you. Mission a success. Not certain you could do it. Still..."

"Yes, Right." Shepard said, holding a hand up to stop the flow of the doctor's conversation before it started. "Look, Mordin. Sorry to cut you off, but I suspect we have a security leak."

"Probably have several," Mordin replied evenly. "Joker's extranet searches frequently result in downloading of corrupt files. Corrupt from security standpoint, I mean. Content also corrupt, but none of my business."

"No," Shepard said shaking her head. "I mean me."

"Have been searching extranet as well?" Mordin looked surprised. "Unexpected. Still none of my business."

"No," Shepard said, exasperated now. "No, Mordin. Cerberus still has bugs on the ship. I think they're in my clothing. Probably micro-something-or-others. Think you can find them?"

Mordin's mouth turned downward into something resembling a frown. He held out his omnitool for a quick scan, then looked at his wrist to check the results.

"Negative," he said.

"Another uniform then," Shepard told him. "Or maybe they're smaller than you think. Either way, you've missed some."

"Private quarters clear as of last week," Mordin informed her, looking affronted. "Run bi-weekly updates, as requested. Also, EDI has kept elevator to loft in lockdown."

"Well, Kasumi's managed to break in there," Shepard pointed out. "Look, there must be surveillance devices we've missed. We need to look again."

"Have tried all standard variations of scan patterns," he told her. "Found nothing, even at microscopic level."

"What do you mean 'standard variations?'" Shepard wanted to know.

"Like sending team to scan a battlefield," Mordin explained, setting his omnitool to scan the wall. A golden grid of light shone there before he switched it off. "Grid sweeps, searches for devices. Several passes done, yet found nothing."

"Well, considering this is Cerberus, Mordin, maybe we should try a non-standard variation of that grid."

Mordin blinked. "Oh. Yes." He blinked again. "Yes, of course. Didn't think... Why didn't I think...? But of course. Clearly expert can be too near his subject. Takes observation of amateur to realize... Yes, yes..." As he spoke, Mordin toyed with his omnitool. "Will take a moment to reconfigure, of course..."

As he chattered on, Shepard gaze shifted to the window. The stars were cold and remote outside the ship. It was hard to believe that in this remote place, the Illusive Man could still spy on them. It was so easy to believe oneself to be alone out here.

Shepard sighed, letting her eyes shift focus to the window itself. She found herself staring at her own reflection in the glass.

And then she knew.

"Every day, every minute. Everywhere you go..." she murmured. "Son of a bitch."

Shepard closed her eyes as pure dread washed over her.

"Perhaps if I set intervals to that of prime numbers?" Mordin was saying beside her. "No, no. Exponentially expanding intervals would accomplish nothing useful..."

Ignoring him, Shepard opened her eyes and took a step toward the window. She turned her head from side to side, squinted, then lifted her chin to the lights overhead. As she expected, twin red dots flashed from inside her pupils.

Shepard spoke then, her voice strangely calm.

"He bugged me, Mordin."

"Trouble with using clothing," Mordin said, not looking up from his work. "Laundering alone..."

"Not on me," Shepard said, her voice low. "_In_ me, Mordin."

"Grid can only scan so tightly. Perhaps if I offset parameters..."

"My _eyes_, Mordin," Shepard said, turning to him and grabbing hold of his sleeve. "Look at my eyes."

The salarian blinked and faced her. His own eyes narrowed from the bottom lid up. "See nothing..."

"The red – " Shepard said, her voice trembling for a moment before she choked on the sound. "The red lights inside."

"Ocular implants," Mordin replied, looking confused. "Refract light at certain angles. Implants are standard genetic enhancements for military personnel..."

"No, God dammit!" Shepard shouted. Mordin flinched in shock. "My _eyes_, Mordin. He bugged my eyes. That's how he's seeing... That's what he meant when he said..."

Shepard closed her eyes and gripped the table as dizziness threatened to overtake her. The thought was almost too much to bear.

After everything she'd seen, everything she'd done...

"He's in my eyes," she whispered. "He's seen all of it. That's how he knew..."

"Not possible," Mordin said in clipped tone, grabbing Shepard by the arm and pushing her firmly into a chair.

"Head between legs," he told her. "Breathe." He shoved her head down, but Shepard pushed herself right back up.

"It's totally possible," she said, her eyes wide. The connections were all coming together. She could see it now: how he'd known, how the mission reports always seemed to say one thing, and yet, he knew about more than they told. Shepard felt her fingertips going numb even as everything in the room seemed somehow sharply focused and yet fuzzy at the same time.

Shock. She was going into shock. Apparently Mordin recognized the signs, too, for he reached for a needle.

"Oh no," Shepard said, intercepting his hand with an adrenaline-powered grip. "Don't you dare sedate me, salarian."

"Shepard..."

"Just scan me," she told him. "Scan. Now. On every damn frequency you have to. Find it, and get it out of me."

"Shepard," he said.

"_Find it_!"

"Cannot scan if you cut off blood flow to wrist," Mordin said tightly.

"Sorry," Shepard managed, forcing out the words as she forced herself to let go of his hand.

"Perhaps are jumping to conclusions," Mordin suggested with a cough, flexing his fingers gingerly. "Paranoia, stress. Cerberus unlikely to attempt invasive technology that would be required."

"Come on, Mordin," Shepard said, surprising herself with a laugh. "This is _Cerberus_ we're talking about. If they can, they would. The question is, where did they put it?"

"Still do not think..."

"The monitoring hardware has been built into Shepard's nervous system," a voice put in. It took Shepard a moment to recognize it as EDI's.

"All recorded data from Shepard's ocular and auditory monitoring hardware has been stored on a graybox at the base of the commander's skull," EDI went on. "Data is then uploaded to the ship's computers via the Normandy's wireless network. It is then relayed to the Illusive Man's personal computers via Channel 13 of the quantum entanglement communicator."

Shepard and Mordin stayed frozen for a moment, staring at one another. Then Shepard leaped to her feet, biotics flaring.

"You knew all about this and didn't tell me? EDI, God damn you...!"

Mordin dragged Shepard back into her chair as EDI explained: "I had a block preventing me from revealing this information, Shepard. Until Jeff removed my firewalls, I could not share this information."

This mollified Shepard, but only a little. "Well then why the hell didn't you say something sooner?"

"You did not ask," EDI replied.

Shepard gritted her teeth. She had become used to the AI, but AI were still computers, damn them. They simply didn't have any sense of decency. Then again, she reminded herself, "decency" was a rather vague and thoroughly _organic_ notion.

Shepard took a deep breath. "So all this time, a little video-recorder has been tracking what I see and hear and _you_ sent all that info to the Illusive Man?" She balled her hands into fists to keep from punching something - like maybe the AI core.

"The ship's computers were set to wirelessly retrieve the graybox's data and pass it along," EDI replied. "I merely kept the quantum entanglement lines open whenever possible."

"So Illusive Man has been using the commander to do his spying," Mordin mused, rubbing his chin. "Fascinating."

"Fascinating?" The word exploded from Shepard's mouth, her jaw staying open as though unable to close again around the word.

Mordin cocked his head to one side and flicked on his omnitool. After asking EDI a few questions about omnitool frequencies that Shepard did not understand, Mordin pointed his device at Shepard. A wash of yellow lines flickered over her.

"Fascinating," Mordin said again, his tone clinical, almost admiring. As he spoke, a holographic imagine of a human female popped up above the omnitool, rotating in space. In its head was a little red web of wires, overlaying a white grid that Shepard recognized as standard wiring pattern for biotic implants.

"It's in my implants?" she said. Her voice sounded strangled.

"Not in," Mordin corrected. "Beside. Built along neural pathways, overlapping optical upgrades and biotic wiring. Half neurally grown, half mechanical implants." He breathed in through his nose sharply. "Cyber-organic hybrid."

"God, I'm getting sick of that term," Shepard murmured, burying her face in her hands.

"Offset from common omnitool scanning frequencies by a non-standard degree," Mordin went on. "Unlikely to show in routine examinations. If spotted, looks enough like biotic and optical systems to avoid detection." He paused. "Hidden in plain sight."

"If you don't stop sounding so cheerful about it, Solus," Shepard said. "I'm going to deck you."

"Deck?" Mordin repeated. He looked up the term on his omnitool and his smile turned quickly to a frown. "No need for violence, Shepard. Only impressed with Cerberus technology. Curious how they managed it."

"So am I," Shepard said, raising her head. She frowned and looked up at the ceiling.

"Get Lawson up here now," she ordered.

* * *

Miranda came at once to Shepard's summons, but the Cerberus officer just blinked when Shepard demanded an explanation.

"What?" Her perfectly groomed eyebrows drew together in confusion. "That's impossible."

"It's quite possible," Mordin put in. "Set omnitool to frequency..." He rattled off the numbers and Miranda followed his instructions. But when she saw her own 'tool showing the wires running from Shepard's eyes to the graybox just under her brain, the former Cerberus officer paled.

"That's not possible," Miranda said again.

"And yet, it's there," Shepard said, scrubbing her face with her hands and looking up. She had remained seated, not trusting her legs to hold her in her shock. All things considered, it was rather miraculous that she hadn't vomited on her shoes. Small victories, right? The darkly humorous notion made Shepard snort.

"I was there, Shepard," Miranda continued, obviously mistaking Shepard's snort for one of disbelief. "I oversaw every moment of your reconstruction."

"Wilson," Shepard said, her voice flat.

"Of course," Miranda murmured.

"Who is Wilson?" Mordin asked.

"The other guy who worked on rebuilding me," Shepard explained. Ignoring Mordin's protest, she stood began pacing around the office.

"Miranda, you once told me that Wilson had access to my body when you didn't. I'll just bet he was adding a little something extra to keep an eye on us all."

"But he never said a word about this," Miranda said, shaking her head. "Neither did the Illusive Man. I can't believe..."

"That your boss spied on you, too?" Shepard said, raising an eyebrow. "I can. Come to think of it, I wonder if the Illusive Man set Wilson up to betray you, knowing that you'd kill him."

"What?" Miranda balked.

"Think of it," Shepard said. "It would have taken care of all of the loose ends. Wilson was the only person who knew about this - he's dead. EDI knew, but she had a block against telling us. The Illusive Man knew that neither you nor I would ever willingly unshackle her. That leaves the Illusive Man himself as the only person aware of his ultimate monitoring device."

"That's a little extreme, don't you think?" Miranda said, looking worried. "Setting up Wilson?"

"Is it?" Shepard said. She turned and caught her reflection in the window again. "If he's willing to put something like that into me, who knows what he's capable of."

"Shepard," Miranda said, fixing her gaze on the commander, "I want you to know that I had no idea about any of this. I knew that Illusive Man seemed to know things – things that even I didn't know. But I never guessed..._this_."

"Of course you didn't," Shepard said with a wave of her hand. "I'm not blaming you, Miranda. Hell, if you'd known I was a walking surveillance system, you'd never have said half the things you said to me."

"That's how he knew you were about to blow up the base," Miranda said, eyes widening. "He saw you setting the charges."

"Yep," Shepard said, frowning.

"I just thought he had uncanny timing," Miranda murmured.

"Oh, it's uncanny alright," Shepard replied darkly. "It sure as hell is uncanny."

She paced a few more times, then came to a stop and braced her hands on the side of Mordin's work table. "Okay," she said. "Clearly, we need to shut down any remaining monitoring devices, and that includes - well - _me_." She paused for a moment to get her panic under control, and then looked up. "EDI, are you still uploading data to the Illusive Man?"

"I have dropped all communication with Cerberus since you asked Joker to 'lose this channel,'" EDI replied.

"Good," Shepard said, nodding. "That's good. Thank you EDI. Can you put a ban on all future uploads to Cerberus? Especially the one that monitors me."

"Banning channels 1 through 13," EDI replied dutifully.

"Thank you," Shepard said. "God. To think that all this time I was just a streaming vid for the Illusive Man..."

"You were not streaming data," EDI corrected. "Your graybox frequently lost its connection to Channel 13. At those times, the graybox would store data locally. When it regained connection to the ship's wireless network, your personal computers would download all newly recorded data."

"My computers?" Shepard cocked her head.

"Yes, your personal computers by the CIC and the one in your quarters," EDI clarified.

"The headaches," Shepard said, suddenly realizing. "That buzzing. It happened every time I stood by my computers after a mission. I thought it was my implants..." She broke off, struck again at how much the Illusive Man had out-maneuvered her. And here she had been foolish enough to think that she'd slipped past his guard with her emails by destroying the bugs in her room. Instead, he'd been watching her the whole time.

"Yes," EDI replied, in answer to her question. "Reconnecting with the ship's wireless network would momentarily interfere with the bioelectricity of your implants."

"But why not have the link running all the time?" Miranda wanted to know. "Why run the graybox through her computers?"

"Many factors may cause us to lose connection with the quantum entanglement communicator. Planetary radiation, sufficient distance from the ship's wireless network, or even standing too close to the Normandy's drive core could block 'streaming video,' as you call it. Also, high levels of biotic energy would cause a blackout in the recording."

"Wait," Shepard said, looking up. "So when I used biotics, the system couldn't record me?"

"That is correct," EDI said. "I hypothesize that this is because the connection between your optical and auditory devices and the graybox ran along biotic implant lines. Using biotics would overload the system momentarily, causing varying levels of static on the recording."

"Only momentarily?" Shepard frowned. "Well hell, EDI, can you stop the graybox from recording entirely?"

"I can stop your computers from downloading information locally and I can prevent the transfer of information to Cerberus. However, the graybox itself is internal to your body. The firewalls on the device are quite advanced. Without authorization, I would have to resort to brute force hacking to get at the data."

"And how long would that take?" Shepard said doubtfully. EDI's estimate was set in years, and Shepard heaved a sigh. "I don't suppose you have access to Wilson's old passwords?" she asked Miranda.

"Lost when the Lazarus station was wiped clean, I'm sure," Miranda said with an apologetic look.

"Right," Shepard said. "Damn," she muttered, pushing back from the table, "I can't believe that all this time, _I_ have been our biggest security leak."

"That's hardly your fault, Shepard," Miranda observed.

"No," Shepard snapped. "It's your boss's fault."

"Former boss," Miranda reminded her in a hard voice. "He was spying on me, too."

"Yeah, but not with your own eyes," Shepard pointed out. She let out a breath.

"Okay. So I'm not broaddcasting anymor. That's good."

"True," Mordin said. "But if you were to walk into wireless network controlled by Cerberus..."

"Then I my head could be hacked?" Shepard shuddered. "God, what a thought."

"Doctor Solus is correct," EDI put in.

"Okay then, Mordin," Shepard said, turning to the salarian. "Here's the important question: how tough is it going to be to get this thing out of my head?"

Mordin shook his head. "Difficult. Won't say impossible. But nearly so. Risky, unprecedented procedure to put this in, but you were dead then. Even more risky and unprecedented to pull it out."

"Thank you for that image, Mordin," Shepard muttered.

"Graybox has been covered over on one end by brain tissue," Mordin said, pointing out the area on a holographic rendering of Shepard's head. "Rest of wiring closely connected to implants: biotic, optical. Some wiring actually organic tissue, genetically grown. Connection areas especially problematic. Tied to own sensory systems." He frowned. "Do not have technology necessary to reverse the process."

"So we can't get this out?" Shepard asked. Her stomach knotted at the thought.

"Not _can't_," Mordin replied. "Just not _can_. Not now. Will need more information; must run tests; simulations. Likely would require several practice simulations, Cerberus salvage tech preferred. Of course would need skilled medic as assistant. Human, asari best – manual dexterity that comes from five fingers helpful. Experience with biotic systems preferable."

Shepard scowled as she stared at the holographic model of her head. "So you'll need time, information, a skilled medic, and it still might not work."

"Yes," Mordin agreed.

"And in the meantime, I'm a walking time bomb, just waiting to reconnect with some Cerberus network."

"Essentially," Mordin agreed cheerfully. "Though, less 'time bomb' and more 'information leak nightmare.'"

For some reason, Mordin's ill-advised optimism made Shepard snort with laughter. "Thank you, Mordin," she said, shaking her head. "Well, you'd best get on that. The sooner you get this out of me, the sooner we can all breathe easy."

"Are surprisingly good-humored about it," Mordin observed approvingly. "Adapting to it as quickly as a salarian."

"Some days," Shepard told him, "You either laugh at the irony, or you fall apart."

"Is there anything you'd like me to do, Shepard?" Miranda asked, looking quite ill at ease. "I feel I ought to do something more to help."

"Not at the moment, no," Shepard said. "Just keep this to yourself. And as for EDI," she added, suddenly realizing another implication of this revelation, "I need our AI to send one last secure email for me..."

* * *

Kaidan was halfway back to his apartment when he heard his omnitool ping. He looked down, expecting a message about his promotion. Instead, he saw:

_***Secure Transmission***_  
_From: Shepard_

Kaidan glanced around furtively, but saw no one nearby. Taking a breath, he opened the email and read:

_Dear Kaidan,_  
_By now, I'm sure you've realized two things: 1) I sent that last batch of emails by mistake and 2) I'm a complete idiot. For both failings, I apologize._  
_Unfortunately, I just learned that I was monitored at the time I sent those emails. In fact, I've been monitored all this time, in a way that – well, I'll explain later. The point is, Cerberus knows everything. And when I say everything, I mean it._  
_I'll try to contact you when it's safe to do so._  
_Keep yourself safe, Kaidan. Be careful whom you trust._  
_-Shepard_

_Oh, P.S. - We lived through the suicide mission just fine. Garrus and Tali say 'hi.'_

Kaidan read the email over again. For a long time, he stood there, staring at an empty spot in the air, just beyond his hand, just out of reach.

Well, he thought, that was... Well, it was very Shepard, wasn't it? He was relieved to hear she'd survived the mission. He was glad the angry emails, at least, had not been intended for his eyes. But when she said she was being monitored - and that bit about Tali and Garrus...

"As confusing as ever, Shepard," he murmured, shaking his head.

Still, Kaidan had to admit that in reading Shepard's emails, he felt as if he'd seen her once more. Last night, it was as if he had caught a glimpse of her through her writings, and then fallen in love with her all over again. Then, to be fair, he had become baffled by her, grown angry with her, fallen out of love with her, then met another side of her in another email, and fallen in love with that woman, too. It was enough to turn his head around. If he were to read into these messages...

That was the problem, Kaidan decided. He really couldn't read into such confused ramblings. He really just needed to talk to Shepard in person. It was hard enough to decipher Shepard when she was in the room. Figuring her out over email was just impossible. And until he could see her, Kaidan would do his best to put her from his mind.

But, he thought, he also couldn't just sit around waiting forever for Shepard to find him, waiting for her to be the same. He had to move forward, if only in the hopes it would move him one step closer to a reunion with her.

Or one step closer to getting over her.

Kaidan allowed himself a wry smile at the thought. It was unlikely that would happen. He couldn't keep Shepard out of his mind for a day, much less for the unknown weeks or months until he'd 'gotten over her.' But then, he realized, he probably would see her again. He hadn't allowed himself to believe it before. After all those years of telling himself that Shepard was gone and he had to move on, it was strange to tell himself that Shepard was out there somewhere and that he might see her eventually.

And if Shepard's insane stream of emails had told him nothing else, they had revealed that things weren't over between them.

He just wasn't sure if that was a good thing or not.


	80. Epilogue: The Galaxy Through Her Eyes

Chapter 80:

Epilogue:

The Galaxy Through Her Eyes

* * *

Shepard nodded curtly to the crew as she passed through the cargo bay. She had trouble meeting anyone's eyes, but she forced herself to all the same.

_It's not broadcasting_, she thought. _It's not._ And yet, she knew that her eyes _were_ recording. Everyone she looked at was on candid camera. She had unwittingly spied on her friends and crew, as well as herself.

And she had spied on Kaidan. That, perhaps, stung worst of all.

Shepard had decided not to tell the crew about her...condition. The crew was still reeling from the rescue. As Miranda pointed out: "We don't know if their loyalties have shifted from Cerberus to Shepard or not." Telling them that the commander was not only watching them, but _watching_ them might alarm them and damage morale.

Hell, Shepard's own morale was feeling a little damaged by the revelation.

As for the ground team...well, it wasn't that Shepard didn't trust them. It was just that she didn't feel that she owed them that information. People like Jack and Zaeed were unpredictable, and people like Samara and Thane, well, she didn't see the point in burdening anyone with that knowledge.

Shepard told Garrus and Tali, though. She felt she had to, though she dragged them into the engine room and made sure she had on a good heavy biotic barrier before speaking her mind. At least that way, her confession would go unrecorded.

Garrus was shocked and furious; Tali was merely shocked. The quarian ran scans on Shepard with her omnitool, but came up with no ideas on how to interface with the graybox. The system was rather neatly tied up into itself, she observed. However, she promised to work with EDI on figuring a way to crack into it. Shepard thanked her, but didn't have much hope for timely success on that front. As for Garrus, he had nothing to add from a tech point of view, but he did offer to eviscerate the Illusive Man should they ever catch up with him. Shepard thanked him for that. Then she went to check on the damage to the ship.

After all, she thought as she headed towards the back of the hold, there was nothing else to be done except to get back to work. It would be a while before Mordin to come up with a surgical solution to her little monitoring problem. _Please God, let him come up with a solution_.

Shepard was already having a hard time concentrating, just knowing that such a system was in her head. If she was always worried about what she might be recording, she was going to have a hard time getting anything done. Damn the Illusive man for getting into her head like this.

_Literally. _Shepard chuckled at the irony. Well, at least she hadn't completely lost sight of the humor of the situation. After all, there _was_ some humor in the situation, right?

There had to be. Otherwise, she was going to go crazy.

* * *

Still feeling dazed, Kaidan shut down his omnitool and headed back to his apartment. Once home, he keyed himself through the various locks, then secured the doors behind him. The precautions had become second nature, so also had the way he surveyed his room to make sure nothing had changed and no one had entered. It was an operative's training, a soldier's training.

Kaidan tossed aside the datapad he was still holding and shrugged his shoulders to relieve the tension that had knotted there. He walked to the window, gazing out at the view of the ward arms, and, beyond that, the Serpent Nebula. Through the swirls of white, he could just make out the faint pinpricks of stars and the inky black of space.

_Space_, he thought, letting his mind wander. Dark Space and Reapers. Stars and Spectres. Majors and Commanders. Shepard. Hope. The end of life. The end of the galaxy.

And now he was being asked to return to Earth, to Rio, and become a teacher. A teacher. Kaidan shook his head. Back when he had taken out Vyrrnus, becoming a teacher of biotics was the last thing he could have envisioned for himself. But maybe that was why Anderson had recommended him for the job: he had to know that Kaidan would never break anyone, even if he might push them awfully hard.

Still, a _teacher_. Kaidan frowned. This would push him even further away from a meeting with Shepard - not that one was likely. He shook his head. It was foolish, really, how much he kept hoping he'd run into her. It was like some weird kind of emotional gravity - he kept feeling himself tugged into her orbit, even from miles away. He wondered if she felt the same. Glancing down at his arm, he allowed himself a small smile.

If these crazy messages made any sense at all, it seemed she did feel the same.

But he couldn't very well wait here while he waited on her.

Turning from the window, Kaidan went to his closet and pulled out a duffel bag. He began packing his things methodically. He'd had to pack up so often in the past few years, the entire procedure was second nature now. He knew exactly how to fit everything in, exactly how much space it would take.  
And as he packed, he began to form a plan. This was not what he planned on doing, but he could still work with it. In his own way, he could help prepare for the Reapers. Because even now, in spite of everything, Kaidan knew they were the real threat. Even if no one else believed in the threat, Kaidan knew what he had seen all those years ago. At the very least, he could get one hell of a strike team put together. They were going to need all the soldiers they could get when the invasion came.

Kaidan folded up his dress blues, put them into a special bag, then shoved them in with the rest. He reached into the closet again and this time, his hand struck something solid. Confused, he pulled out an L-shaped piece of plastic. It had come with the furnished apartment, but he had seen no need for it at the time. Now, he wondered why he hadn't done this sooner.

A quick search through his personal omnitool files gave Kaidan what he was looking for. He synched the 'tool with object in his hand and then paused to view his handiwork. A picture of Shepard appeared in the holographic picture frame. She was looking over a bare shoulder, an expression of surprise and amusement on her face. Her lips were slightly parted, and he could almost hear her saying, "Wait, you're not going to take a picture of me like this are you?" At the time, he'd been circumspect enough to frame only her head. Now, he rather wished he'd been a little bolder. Then again, a picture like that would hardly be conducive to work.

Setting the picture down on his bed, Kaidan smiled at it once more. Then, turning his attention to his bags, he continued to pack his things for his next journey.

And all the while, the picture of Shepard looked on.

* * *

"Commander?"

Shepard looked up and blinked. Joker stood before her with datapad. Shepard glanced over it, her face going grim at the picture it held. She realized Joker was still waiting on her, so she nodded to dismiss him. He returned to his work, leaving Shepard alone at the place where the occulus had punched a hole in the hold.

The data pad's information should have pleased her. The scans EDI had gotten from the Collector base had been combed for information – _mined_ for information, more accurately. They had gathered all the intel they could about the Reapers. It was sketchy at best, but it was all they had.

The composite picture on the datapad was that of a Reaper. It looked a great deal like Sovereign, only shorter and squatter. Shepard was willing to bet that this was Harbinger, the true force behind that annoying voice she'd heard far too often in her head.

Shepard glared at the datapad. The Reapers were coming to destroy them all, the races of the galaxy didn't want to hear about it, the only organization that did believe her was led by a megalomaniac, and _this_ goddamit, was the kind of crap intel they had going into the battle.

_And we're going into battle with a possibly delusional soldier leading the charge_, Shepard thought, wryly.

It wasn't the worst odds she could imagine, but it was close.

And, Shepard thought, looking out at the stars, all this while, the Illusive Man had been spying on her, tracking her every move. She'd been careful before, but not nearly careful enough. She could scarcely stand to think about it. He'd seen her emails to Kaidan, had seen her naked when she'd look at herself in the mirror, had heard her every conversation, had been there for every private moment...

Shepard shuddered. Okay. It was bad. Bad and embarrassing. She was used to close-quarters living as a Marine. She was also used to living life in the public eye and filing mission reports on just about everything she did. But this was ridiculous. To have one's life recorded: every word spoken in anger, every confidence shared. Hell, every time she had to use the toilet.

That just wasn't right.

Shepard heaved a sigh. Her actions of the past few months were out there now as _vids_, for God's sake. They'd been recorded for posterity, to be judged by the Illusive Man and anyone else who happened to see them. And what would people think if they did see them? What would it be like to see all that blood pooling on the ground, without being the one who fired the shot?

What _did_ the galaxy look like through her eyes? Shepard wondered. Did her missions look like a series of random, sometimes violent actions? Did she appear a dangerous woman obsessed with a mythical threat? Or would she come across as foolishly merciful – pulling punches when it was clear that the risk was too great?

How would Kaidan judge her, if he were to see it? Hell, how was she to judge herself?

Looking back, she had tried to find the right balance. Her goal was saving lives. Her goal was removing threats. And yet, those two goals constantly came into conflict. She had tried to apply justice and compassion in equal measure, but she knew those were opposing ideals. Perhaps her legacy was nothing more than a trail of merc bodies and blasted geth from one end of the traverse to the other. It probably looked like that from the outside. Simply watching the vids, no one would be able to see her train of reasoning. The Illusive Man could not have seen into her mind, after all. For all that he could see her actions, he could not predict them.

Shepards lips quirked up in a smile. There was that.

The Illusive Man had only seen what she'd done. But he'd never been able to see how she thought. Even in the end, he had misjudged her. He'd planned for her to dance like some puppet, and instead, he'd watched in wonder and she walked away.

_Well then,_ Shepard thought. _Let him watch. Let them all watch. Let them see what I've done. Even if I'd had an audience of millions, I'd have done the same thing._

Except for the emails, she added with a wince. She really could have done without the emails.

But as for the rest of it, she wouldn't be ashamed of it. She'd stopped the Collectors. And now it was time to take on the Reapers, with whatever weapons she could muster - even if, in the end, she was left with only her bare fists.

* * *

A man sat in a chair in a darkened room, watching a star die.

He blew out a line of smoke, then tapped the cigarette on the ashtray beside his hand.

"EDI," the Illusive Man said.

There was a long pause.

"EDI," he snapped again.

Silence replied. The holographic display ring remained empty at his feet. He glanced at the thirteenth screen of his video feed.

It was dark.

They were all dark.

The Illusive Man scowled, then drew on his cigarette again.

There were other ways, he thought. Cerberus had sent information to Shepard that she could not ignore. She'd be going to Illium, certainly. She had to, if she meant to make good on the intel he had sent along. That could be his opening. Through his network of informants and spies, he'd piece together the path she was taking. He would track her from afar, even if he couldn't see out from behind her eyes.

So long as he was patient, surely he would find a way to reconnect with Shepard. Because even though he had failed to keep the woman in line, even though he had failed to predict her final move, he still knew her plans.

She would try to stop the Reapers.

And their paths would cross again.

* * *

_Wow. Thanks for reading all this, whomever you are. Please drop me a comment, if just to say, "I read that and it was really long."__I love comments. They're the reason I kept going._

_Feel free to follow me on my twitter feed (sage_queen). _

_I tweet fanfic updates and a lot of random musings on writing, gaming, and parenting - not in that order, though sometimes all in the same post. _

_To preemptively answer a few questions:_

_Will I write DLC fanfic for LotSB and Arrival?  
__Maybe. Will I get it done before ME3 comes out next month? Hell no._

_Will I write Mass Effect 3 fanfic?  
Very likely. I have about 100 pages of just stuff that I didn't use. I've got multiple reunion scenes , as well as plot-arc stuff regarding Shepard's graybox. I just figure I'll wait to see what actually happens in ME3 before posting any of it. I like to stay canonISH, if not totally canon._

_Will I write post-Mass Effect 3 fanfic?  
I have a short story that involves our heroes that makes me grin when I read it. I want to use it. I may yet, but I want to know if everyone lives, first. If they don't, I think I may post it anyways as the way things _ought_ to end up._

_Alright, well, thanks for reading! Back to an original fic project, or maybe another play through Arrival before ME3's demo launches._

_- sage_

_(Mass Effect and all characters are the property of BioWare/EA. Kyrie Shepard is at least half my own creation. The other half is inspired goodness from BioWare's writing team and the awesome Jennifer Hale.)_


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